By Edwin Fidelis – EMTV News, Kokopo
The Rabaul Volcano Observatory (RVO) has lashed out against the ongoing theft of vital volcanic data recording equipment.
Yesterday, a seismic station located at Raluana was tampered with, and its solar battery stolen.
Volcanologists at RVO have reported that ongoing vandalism and theft of this equipment has posed high risks to accurate data recordings, and may affect predictions of volcanic eruptions.
They also report that the battery stores power from the solar panels and powers up the radio for the stations. The radio receives data from the seismometer and transmits data to RVO for processing.
That seismic station at Raluana point is one of 14 seismic stations that make up the Rabaul Harbour network, monitoring earth movements around the Rabaul Caldera.
Yesterdays incident brought the total numbered of tampered stations this year to four.
