About $150,000 is needed for the purchase and installation of air-sirens for Suva in the event of a tsunami warning.
National Disaster Management Office acting director Pajiliai Dobui said a briefing with agencies responding to the tsunami warning yesterday discussed ways to improve tsunami warning response.
"We identified areas in Suva that needed warning sirens but we did not have funding for installation," he said.
"The sirens we chose are designed by Safeway Electronics and are similar to the sirens used in the Second World War and the one that sounds at 7am in Walu Bay.
"A few alarms were tested. We chose the air-sirens to be installed in areas we identified in Suva. We need about six to cover the Suva and Lami area."
He said one of the sirens would likely be placed at the Reserve Bank of Fiji building.
He said warnings and alerts would be dispersed to coastal areas through Telecom Fiji, Vodafone and Digicel networks.
"There were several outcomes of the meeting. One was to disperse more specific details of the tsunami warning," he said.
"This would include identifying where the earthquake occurred, whether a tsunami has been generated and the first impact areas in Fiji. We need to clarify that a tsunami warning is not a call for offices, businesses and schools to close.
"It is a warning given for people to move to higher ground. When the warning is cancelled, then people should return to work or school."
Mr Dobui said they are still working on identifying safer evacuation routes around Fiji.
He said one way to create awareness on this was to erect large billboards with maps and evacuation routes in Suva.
He said shortest routes would also be identified to avoid traffic congestion.
