New Delhi: It was a devastating attack from the forces of nature. Eighty-feet high walls of water pounding the shores of South Asia.

People tried desperately to flee the wrath of the tidal waves but with no warning and most people not ever having heard the word 'tsunami' before there was little hope. Over ten thousand people died in India alone.

"We will have all the systems in place by September 2007,but there is no such thing as an interim measure. We may not have the technology in place yet but we are better prepared with our warning systems," says Minister of Science and Technology Kapil Sibal.

So far only the preliminary work has been done. The mapping of the ocean floor is complete, says Sibal. But now comes the real work.

All efforts are focused on developing the software that will predict, almost in real time, how much damage will be caused along the coastline.

The system works something like this. A pressure sensor on the ocean floor measures the weight of the water above it. When this increases beyond a point, the sensor sends an audio signal to a buoy placed on the water. This buoy then sends out a warning to a satellite and warning centres are alerted.

However, India is not working with its neighbours to develop this software.

"With Rs 125 crores we can develop and put the tsunami warning in place by ourselves, and we will only share information when there is a disaster. For the government, security is a major concern," says Sibal.

But in India, more than the complex ocean mapping and software, the greatest challenge might be informing people quickly enough.