India's space agency is framing a plan to evolve a disaster management support system using the surveillance capabilities of its extensive satellite network, its chief has said.

G. Madhavan Nair, head of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), said the agency planned to put to larger use its experience in monitoring and providing cyclone warnings for the Andhra Pradesh and Orissa coasts.

"We are thinking of evolving a total disaster management support system by which satellite images will be analysed and made available to a disaster management control room," he said.

"Sensors will have to be embedded at the bottom of the deep seas.

"The system will be put into operation by the end of the year," Nair said late Tuesday at the inauguration of a centre for remote sensing and geo-informatics at the Satyabhama deemed university near Kanchipuram, 76 km from here.

"We could use the remote sensing and aerial photography capabilities of our satellite to provide information for relief and rehabilitation," he said, emphasising the need for a national disaster management mechanism that linked India's ground, space and ocean-based observation systems.

But Nair noted accurate tsunami predictions might not be possible, largely due to technological glitches.

"Even if the sensors (in the oceans) are able to detect the slightest wave fluctuations, understanding which one could result in a tsunami is not an easy task," he said.

Tsunamis also could not be detected by satellites as they generated only shallow waves on the sea surface. They were also rare events in this part of the world, Nair pointed out.

He said an automatic system of collecting data from remote weather stations and relaying them via satellite to 200 locations across the country would be set up by the yearend.