Indonesia's early-warning buoys out of action when big quake hit

Padang

ALL 22 of the early-warning buoys Indonesia deployed after the 2004 tsunami disaster were inoperable when a massive undersea earthquake struck off the coast on Wednesday, a National Disaster Mitigation Agency official said.

The 7.8 magnitude quake did not trigger a tsunami, and there were no deaths and no major damage but it did expose gaps in the systems put in place to prevent a disaster similar to the Indian Ocean quake that killed more than 200,000 people 11 years ago.