Daily News Briefs

AuctionDrop (www.auctiondrop.com) has announced a fund-raising program to help disaster victims in South Asia through donations of used cameras, computers and consumer electronics. Items may be dropped off at any The UPS Store in the US (at no cost to the donor); AuctionDrop will sell them on eBay and donate the net proceeds to CARE's Earthquake and Tsunami Relief and Rehabilitation Fund. . . . Tsunami warnings will be improved through the installation of an array of deep ocean tsunami detectors and a major upgrade of existing earthquake detection networks, according to the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program. These sensors will provide faster, more accurate estimates of tsunamis, the group said. The locations of oceanic sensors and land-based seismic sensors are identified at: www.pmel.noaa.gov/tsunami-hazard. Maps identifying areas of likely tsunami flooding for at-risk communities are being constructed to guide local tsunami hazard planning. The Center for Tsunami Inundation Mapping Efforts was created to assist the states in evacuation map production. The National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program is a state/federal partnership created to reduce the impacts of tsunamis on US Coastal areas by coordinating the state efforts of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington with the federal activities of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the US Geological Survey.