THE West New Britain provincial administration has allocated K10,000 to the provincial disaster office to conduct physical survey in the Sulu area after a build-up of seismic activity was reported early this week.
Acting disaster director for the WNB disaster office Peter Morlin said due to earth tremor data coming from Mt Pago stations that were indicating increase in seismic activities, they had requested for the provincial administration to release funds so that they were able to go into Sulu area to investigate.
He said the response from the provincial administration was good, enabling them to travel to Sulu to interview locals, in particular, on exactly how many quakes were being felt each day.
Mr Morlin said this would also give a clear picture to the Rabaul Volcano Observatory on the status of the seismic activity which the provincial disaster office believed were volcanic tremors.
RVO in the meantime, does not have a seismograph at Sulu to monitor the activity and is planning to send a team over.
He said the Sulu range activity which occurred in July to Auguest 2006, recorded more than 20,000 earth tremors, reportedly far greater than any seismic activities ever recorded.
Mr Morlin said at present, the Sulu range crisis of 2006 had captured the interest of scientists worldwide.
During the 2006 activity, five temporary seismic stations were located within the vicinity of Sulu area but were removed when the seismic activity dropped to acceptable levels.
Mr Morlin said since then, there had been no reinstallation of any monitoring device in the area, thus being handicapped with funds.