LAST YEAR'S record-breaking number of tropical storms and hurricanes saw the need to prepare, where possible, for natural disasters.
The Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 killed more than 200,000 people.
Following the disaster, the 24-hour, seven-day a week staffing of the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Centre has now been confirmed.
WARNING CENTRE
A warning centre in Hawaii's Ewa Beach - an area that has also experienced tsunamis - will also be operating around the clock.
With these measures in place, concern about tsunamis hitting the Caribbean will now be debated.
The first meeting of the Intergovernmental Coordination Group (ICG) for the Tsunami and Other Coastal Hazards Warning System for the Caribbean and Adjacent Regions will be held in Barbados from January 10 - 12.
Around 10 major tsunamis have been recorded in the northern Caribbean. The most recent, in 1946, was triggered by an earthquake in the Dominican Republic that claimed 1,800 lives.
Recent studies point to risks linked to shifts in the North America and Caribbean tectonic plates and to major undersea landslides off the northern shore of Puerto Rico.
Representatives of the 30 countries concerned will take part in the ICG meeting in the Barbados capital, Bridgetown, and will determine a plan of action for risk assessment, collection and sharing of data and emergency management.
The 2006 meeting follows the ICG and International Conference for the Development of a Tsunami discussions held in Mexico City last June.
