Caribbean plans tsunami warning system by 2010

From a Reuters' article by Andrew Beatty:

PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - Caribbean states will set up a joint tsunami warning center before the end of the decade, governments agreed at a meeting in Panama on Thursday.

Supporters want the center to relay information from national geological institutes across the region, providing an early warning system that could help prevent deaths and infrastructure damage in the event of a tsunami.

Peter Koltermann, executive secretary of the United Nations Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, told a meeting of around 30 Caribbean states that the likelihood of a tsunami hitting the region at some point was "probable."

He said a regional warning center could help prevent disasters like the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed around 230,000 people.

Koltermann had said during a session on Wednesday that "the situation in the Indian Ocean was similar to the Caribbean. Nobody believed it would happen, but it happened."