Tsunami buoys 'need pirate protection'

The headline pretty much says it all...Tsunami buoys 'need pirate protection':

Meteorologists are worried that proposed tsunami warning buoys to be located between Australia and Indonesia will be stolen by pirates.

The Bureau of Meteorology plans to position two buoys in international waters between the two nations, meteorology director Geoff Love said today.

"We are negotiating an agreement with the Indonesian Government to make sure they don't become victims of pirates, scrap metal collectors," Dr Love told a senate estimates committee in Canberra.

"That has happened to Bureau of Meteorology assets off northwest Australia in the past – we've found automatic weather stations for sale in Hong Kong," he said.

"We don't want that that to happen again, so I'd like the Indonesians to have some ownership of these."

Dr Love said he wanted the Indonesian navy to play a role in protecting the buoys.

The bureau planned to float the buoys this year, he said.

But the relevant Indonesian agencies were tied up with the installation of US buoys in the Indian Ocean.

The 2004 tsunami, which began off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, killed more than 225,000 people and devastated coastal communities in a number of Asian nations.

Arrgh. Pirates (or in this case, thieves) tend to look out for themselves and not worry about the lives of thousands of others...