Caretakers of South China Sea navigation buoys in Yongxing Island make preparations for a patrol out in the sea on August 5 in Sansha, South China's Hainan Province. (Photo/GT)
A tsunami alert center established by China in the South China Sea area has begun operating, reflecting the nation's contributions to regional peace and the region's recognition of China's technologies.
The South China Sea Tsunami Advisory Center (SCSTAC),the latest addition to the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), is hosted and funded by China's National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center in Beijing.
The center opened on Tuesday to provide round-the-clock tsunami early warning services to nine countries the South China Sea, including Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, according to a statement the SCSTAC sent to the Global Times on Tuesday.
The selection of China as host of the center shows China's technological advancement and recognition of its reliability from its regional neighbors, an employee from the center surnamed He told the Global Times on Thursday.
The center also held a training session for delegations from South China Sea region countries last month, He said.
The SCSTAC is not only in charge of providing advisories to countries in the region but also disaster relief-related training and educational programs.
The latest generation home-developed tsunami early warning information processing platform is also applied in the SCSTAC, enabling the center to reduce early warning messages for potential tsunamis to eight to 12 minutes after an undersea earthquake from 20-30 minutes in 2015.
China provides another important and continuous support to ocean sustainable development by establishing the SCSTAC, Vladimir Ryabinin, executive secretary of UNESCO's IOC, was quoted as saying in the statement.
Observers hailed the center as a latest manifestation of China's unwavering efforts to regional peace and prosperity, unlike another power outside the region that only adds instability to the South China Sea area.
