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The article focuses on the tsunami that struck the Solomon Islands on April 2, 2007. The article comments that if the tsunami had struck several hours earlier, many more people might have died. Two earthquakes struck in the morning, triggering the tsunami. Many people on the islands saw the sea receding before the tsunami and escaped, according to Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare. A tsunami warning was issued within 15 minutes of the quake, but the islands did not receive the warning in time.

The article presents news related to various issues. According to a snippet, three of the six American buoys in the Pacific Ocean that detect tsunamis are broken, the U.S. National Weather Service admitted. Two near Alaska have been broken for 14 months, while one off the coast of Washington started to malfunction in November. Another snippet presents information on a Romanian woman aged 66, who has become the oldest mother on record. The woman became pregnant after insemination with donated sperm after nine years of fertility treatment, including hormones to reverse the menopause.

The article reports on a collaboration between the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) and TE SubCom, a company of TE Connectivity Ltd., to integrate scientific instruments into the seafloor communication cables across the Pacific Ocean. The purpose of the collaboration is to deploy sensors in the undersea cable which will be capable of transmitting data at 40 gigabits per second. It will reduce long-term costs for tsunami monitoring.

Debates whether tsunami warning systems installed in the Pacific Ocean should be expanded to the whole planet following the tsunami disaster in South East Asia in December 2004. Effect of subduction-zone earthquakes in triggering tsunamis; Reluctance of people living in coastal areas to heed warnings about impending tsunamis.

Speculates on the possibility of a major tsunami hitting the West coast of the United States, given the 700-mile fault in the Pacific Northwest. Description of the Juan de Fuca fault, which is similar to the system that triggered the tsunami in the Indian Ocean; Significance of the extensive tsunami warning and evacuation system in the Pacific Northwest, which was nonexistent in Southeastern Asia.

The article reports on the success of the test of a tsunami warning buoy conducted by Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) in the Pacific Ocean. SAIC developed the buoy in response to the tsunamis that devastated coastal regions in southern Asia on December 26, 2004. The buoy can easily integrate into the current national and international tsunami warning systems. It has meteorological and oceanographic sensors to meet the needs of a variety of oceanic regions.

This article reports on the announcement of a program design to expand the tsunami-warning system in the United States. On Jan. 14, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush announced a $37.5 million The 2-year plan includes placing tsunami-detecting buoys in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea as well staffing around the clock the existing tsunami-warning centers in Alaska and Hawaii. Currently, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) operates a six-buoy warning system in the Pacific Ocean. Other important initiatives in the new plan include procuring, operating, and maintaining 38 new shore-based tide-gauge stations, upgrading 20 seismometers used to measure earthquakes, identifying shorelines along the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico that would be particularly susceptible to tsunamis, and boosting community preparedness in coastal areas. Although existing budgets included funding for many of these initiatives, Lautenbacher admitted that last week's proposed acceleration of their implementation wouldn't have occurred but for the horrendous toll of last month's tsunamis in the Indian Ocean.

The article presents information on tsunamis. The more scientists look into the tsunami threat beyond Asia, the larger it seems to loom. Large tsunamis are not that rare and, every now and again, they crash into familiar ports of call, sweeping away people and property. Tsunamis take time to travel. For this reason, 26 countries have banded together to establish a tsunami-warning system for the Pacific Ocean.

Presents information on how vulnerable the North American shores are to large tsunamis. Reference to how an earthquake in Chile killed 61 people on the island of Hawaii in 1960; Property damage caused by a tsunami along the western coasts of the U.S. and Canada; How the U.S. Geological Survey has gathered evidence of the existence of tsunamis sometime in the last 300 years; Impact of the undersea plate movements in the fault at the Cascadia subduction zone that ruptured near Sumatra; Time in which tsunamis take to travel across oceans such as the Indian and the Pacific; Findings that tsunami warning systems are wrong 75 percent of the time.