Update: Tsunami Toll on the Rise

The death toll caused by the Indonesian earthquake and subsequent tsunami wave on Monday, reached the alarming threshold of 500 and even surpassed it, while the number of wounded people reached 727, according to latest reports, CNN informs.

In addition to that, more than 35,000 civilians have been displaced, according to a report released by the Indonesian department of social affairs on Wednesday. Moreover, the report stated, hundreds of buildings have been destroyed: "We are mobilizing all our national and provincial resources to the area to handle the injured", Dino Djalal, a spokesman for the Indonesian presidential office, highlighted.

As if the situation was not critical enough at the present moment, another issue has been lurking around, related to the tsunami prevention and notification system, whose technology continues to lag behind, even though many countries have attempted to implement efforts into developing it. Many survivors have accused this system of being completely useless since the only earthquake and tsunami notification they got was the phenomena themselves. The early warning system that the Indonesian, German and the UN scientists' panel have been trying to develop after the devastating December 2004 tsunamis, has not yet been completed, yet the so called deep ocean sensors have been placed off the coast of Sumatra. Officials declared that data from these sensors would be analyzed.

The Associated Press reported that the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and the Japanese Meteorological Agency issued tsunami warnings an hour before it actually occurred, while according to Science and Technology Minister Kusmayanto Kadiman, Indonesia received the bulletins 45 minutes before the actual tsunami hit the island. However, the Indonesian government chose not to release them, out of fear that they may be false: "If it (the tsunami) did not occur, what would have happened?", he stated, in an effort to prove the government's point of view.

Nevertheless, Indonesian officials asserted that plans are now being made in order to better develop a nationwide warning system.