JAKARTA, Indonesia — Nearly three years after waves claimed more than 120,000 lives in towns along the Indonesian coastline, the once-archaic tsunami warning center in downtown Jakarta has been transformed into a technological jewel, manned 24 hours a day and receiving real-time feeds on tremors in the region.

Though the center still has much more work to do — on everything from installing more earthquake sensors to educating the public on when to flee — experts say the Indonesians are now more ready than they have ever been to warn residents of an impending tsunami.

"They are a considerable ways there," said Charles McCreery, director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in 'Ewa Beach, who had visited the Jakarta facility three times before making the trip yesterday with a Hawai'i delegation of Hawaii National Guard members, state officials and representatives. "They're getting their feet wet."

McCreery and other Hawai'i experts played a big role in helping to beef up the center, which has also received millions of dollars in grants from around the world.

And McCreery said the center has made seemingly impossible leaps forward since the December 2004 tsunami, when the warning system in Indonesia was largely nonexistent.

He should know. After all, McCreery was the one who desperately tried to call the warning center on Dec. 26 nearly three years ago to alert them of the killer waves.

No one answered. But even if they had, officials doubt there was much they could have done to warn people in remote villages — or even bigger towns.

Even today, Indonesian officials are grappling with how to educate the public on tsunami awareness. A series of false alarms over the past two years has not helped.

Just last week, villagers in Aceh province, which was hardest hit in 2004, destroyed a tsunami alarm after it accidentally went off and spurred widespread hysteria.

Officials have said false alarms were sounded in Kaju, sending thousands fleeing and clogging roads in the early morning. When another siren sounded in nearby Lhoknga that afternoon, frustrated residents reportedly threw rocks at its electrical panel to turn it off.

Also, only certain parts of the Indonesian coastline have any alarms at all.

In places without sirens, the warning center has set up a system to alert officials, first responders and the media. The message is then passed on to the public.

BUT PROBLEMS PERSIST

Whether that will be enough is unclear.

In July 2006, Indonesian authorities were harshly criticized in the wake of a tsunami in Java, which killed more than 500 people.

The tsunami center in Jakarta sent out a warning, but it didn't get to people on the coastline quickly enough.

At the time, the center said the problem was communications: Some phone lines at police stations and government offices were busy, and there was no one who could get a message to the rural residents — farmers and fishermen — along the coast.

P.J. Prih Harjadi, of the Jakarta warning center, pointed out that Indonesia is a massive archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, with a population of about 123 million people.

Many of its residents are poor — per capita annual income is about $1,280 — and every year, the country has thousands of earthquakes, few of which generate tsunamis.

"We still have to reach for the ideal," Harjadi said. "The system is not completely finished yet, but we have already arrived at a center step."

While the Indonesians are still struggling with how to warn and evacuate millions from the country's shorelines, the center has made big strides in monitoring earthquakes.

So far, there are 73 operational earthquake sensors scattered across the country and nearly 90 more are to be put in place by the end of 2008, according to officials at the Indonesia Bureau of Meteorological Geophysics, which oversees the warning center.

THE COST OF READINESS

Information from the sensors comes in 24 hours a day to the center, which is staffed around the clock and equipped with new computers and software. Flat-screen televisions dot the walls, and staff members analyze information immediately.

The center also has two tsunami buoys that gauge the size of waves, and will have three more by the end of the year. By comparison, the warning center in Hawai'i monitors about 230 sensors around the Pacific, McCreery said.

"Indonesia has a big challenge in front of it to develop this, to make it sustainable," he said. "But they're starting a bit with a fresh slate, and they got resources pumped in."

The transformation of the center has not come cheaply. Though a total value of contributions was not available, officials said Indonesia — along with Japan, China and Germany — has chipped in millions for sensors, buoys and other equipment.

Sensors can cost $20,000 to $100,000, while buoys cost about $250,000.

In a briefing with Indonesian officials before the tour, several pointed out that private industry is also paying for alarm systems and other equipment.

Gov. Linda Lingle attended the meeting, but had to go to another appointment at the U.S. Embassy and so did not have time to see the revamped warning center.

She said she was impressed with how far the center has come in such a short time.

"We come to you feeling we can share some of our experiences," Lingle added.

Reach Mary Vorsino at mvorsino@honoluluadvertiser.com.