The United States is sponsoring further research and equipment to protect all coastal residents. In this effort, the White House announced January 14, the government will spend $37.5 million to quadruple the size of the warning network in the Pacific, along with creating safeguards for the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf coasts. Predicted operating costs are at $24.5 million a year, in addition to the initial costs.

The technology that is to be put in place will consist of 38 high-tech buoys attached to pressure recorders on the ocean floor, spread out over the coastal areas that are at risk to a potential tsunami. Currently, only the Pacific has instruments implemented to predict such an occurrence. The planning stages for the remaining coasts has been rapidly boosted, following last month’s tragedies in the Indian Ocean.

This system, once expanded, will also be able to protect the Caribbean, Central, and South America, and is expected to be in place by mid-2007. The president sees an overwhelming response of fear on the part of coastal residents from all over the world, and feels a duty to take action.

The program, headed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U. S. Geological Survey, is designed to involve other countries who wish to participate. Chile has plans to add two buoys of its own.

The greatest risk posed is not on the west coast but in the Atlantic basin where many islands sit atop volcanoes or are near earthquake zones. This threat, scientists believe, could affect North, Central, and South America but timing, they say, cannot be predicted more specifically than in the next 5,000 years.