GENEVA, Dec 29: A tsunami early alert system, which could have saved thousands of lives around the Indian Ocean this week, should be in place in South and Southeast Asia within a year, a UN official said on Wednesday.

The technology to detect undersea earthquakes, such as the one off Indonesia that unleashed Sunday's devastating waves, is used elsewhere and could be shared with vulnerable coastal communities in the region, said Salvano Briceno, head of a United Nations' disaster agency.

"I want to see that every coastal country around South Asia and Southeast Asia has at least a basic but effective tsunami warning system in place by this time next year," the director of the UN's International Strategy for Disaster Reduction said in a statement. -Reuters