Appropriate site offshore Tawau for the Tsunami buoy?

On Friday 19/10/2012, media reported a fatal accident during deployment of a tsunami buoy near Pulau Sipadan. This is the first ever fatal accident in such deployment. I have been personnaly involved or supervised contractor to deploy similar buoy on seasurface in water depth up to 2,000m. With proper vessel equipped with A- frame and experienced contractor to release buoy to seasurface under favourable sea condition, the work is safe. (we stopped work when condition was unfavourable), 

Meanwhile, I am concerned on the intended positioning of such a tsunami buoy in the Celebes Sea. Tsunami travels very fast, up to 400 kt, as fast as the cruising speed of a commercial airline.   The buoy must be located far from coast to detect the tsunami signal and gives warning to the local authority who then issues warning to the ppl. If there is an auto-trigger of the warning (i.e. with human intervention), the  buoy should be at least 20 -min time from the coast of Sabah, which then requires the buoy to be placed about 120 nautical miles from coast of Sabah. Picture shows the preferred locations of the buoy (indicated by the white lines). If the buoy is placed too near to shore, the tsunami will reach the coast, kills many ppl before  warning is received.

Putting a buoy is expensive..my experience 6 years ago (i)  cost of mob and demob a vessel (<1 ---="---" cost="cost" day="day" deployment="deployment" gross="gross" ii="ii" just="just" nbsp="nbsp" of="of" one-off="one-off" per="per" port="port" rate="rate" rm300k="rm300k" rm500k="rm500k" so="so" tawau="tawau" the="the" this="this" to="to" ton="ton" using="using" vessel="vessel"> RM1 mill, (iii) monthly rental of buoy, weights, chain, satellite trasnponders etc RM 300k per month, or> RM3mill per year. Thereafter every 6-9 months, service visit to buoy using same type of vessel, recurrence cost ~>RM1 million (today vessel's mob/demob cost and its  day rate should be significantly  higher!)

Thus, this tsunami project must be done with great care and prudence