Four years after a mega-tsunami killed more than 250,000 people in Asia, the Mediterranean remains the only world ocean or sea unprotected by any warning system, according to Dr. Costas Synolakis, professor of natural disasters at the Technical University of Crete.

"Deadly tsunamis occur at least as frequently in the Mediterranean, (a huge boundary between colliding plates almost as long as its Sumatran counterpart), as in the Inian Ocean," Dr. Synolakis pointed out.

"Portugal was finished as a world power following the 1755 Lisbon tsunami. A tsunami in 1908 in Messina, Italy, killed thousands, and the 1956 Amorgos earthquakes in Greece triggered waves rising up to the level of five-story buildings. Istanbul has seen more destructive tsunamis than conquerors."

Dr. Synolakis  warned that Mediterranean nations need to take note.

"Most European children learn less about protecting themselves in case of a tsunami than do many kids in small island nations in the developing world," he said. "There are no functional regional or national tsunami warning centers in the Mediterranean, even among those countries which fund initiatives in the Caribbean and the Indian and Pacific oceans."

It is interesting to note that scientific reports from the last couple of years suppose that tsunamis have affected the region even in antiquity, as far back as 3,500 years ago. Scientists proposed that Atlantis, the great ancient civilisation that disappeared under the sea, which for centuries was considered to have existed in legend only, may in fact have been real.

Research carried out in Crete led scientists to believe that a massive tsunami, as powerful as the one that struck the coastlines of Thailand and Sri Lanka in 2004, hit Crete around 1500 BC and swallowed up the ancient civilisation.