Responding to criticisms that the government had been slow in warning local inhabitants of the impending tsunami along the south coast of Java, Vice President Jusuf Kalla, Chairman of the National Coordinating Body for Natural Disasters, has called on related Ministers to urgently work towards the completion of the tsunami warning system to be accelerated to 2008 at the latest, and that threatened communities must receive adequate warning, no later than 20 minutes after the earthquake.

Meanwhile, awaiting installation of the system, Minister for Information and Communications, Sofjan Djalil, has called on all television and radio stations to be immediately linked into the warning system of BMG, ’s Meteorology and Geophysics Board, reports Bisnis .

Television and Radio stations are instructed to interrupt all broadcast should an announcement of an earthquake be made by BMG especially those that warn of a possible tsunami.

Therefore, for now, warnings to local expected stricken areas could be relayed through existing available systems, whose equipment will only need slight adjustments. These include BTS (Base Transmission Stations) towers constructed to relay cell phone signals, that are already installed in many parts of the islands by operators like Telkomsel and Indosat , as well as the radio and telecommunication network  used by Indonesia’s national Police. Telkomsel is said to operate more than 6,000 mobile phone transmission towers throughout the country, and has targeted their expansion to all districts nationwide this year.

Sirens will now be attached to existing BTS towers that will be directly linked to the BMG system. A hotline will also be installed from BMG to the Jakarta Police Headquarters, who can immediately relay tsunami warnings to provincial, district, or even local police stations.

Meanwhile, Research and Technology Minister Kusmayanto Kadiman said Thursday that the government aimed to complete the construction of three seismic sensor devices in Sumatra , Java and Bali by the end of the year, reported the Jakarta Post.

"In line with the construction of the devices, the government also plans to install sirens on mobile phone transmission towers." The sirens would allow for the faster alert of local communities and for their evacuation to higher ground.

"Using the new devices, the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG), which will receive the warning of the disaster, will immediately relay the warning to the office of the communication and information minister," he said.

"The minister's office will in turn deliver the warning to all phone operators, including Telkomsel and Indosat, so that they can activate the sirens."

Minister Kusmayanto said the government has allocated funds amounting to Rp 1.2 trillion (about US$127 million) from both state and regional budgets for the installation of the devices.

Meanwhile, responding to public criticism, on its part, in the past week, BMG has been  busy issuing information on a number of earthquakes in many parts of , from Nias to Bali and Nusatenggara, citing those of  above magnitude 4 on the Richter scale. However, thankfully, up to now, no tsunami has been triggered by these quakes.