Emergency management authorities will install this year tsunami alert systems on the east coast and on the south coast and Jeju Island next year.

The National Emergency Management Agency on Tuesday said the system is aimed to protect against a tsunami that could affect South Korea 90 minutes after a quake hits Japan's west coast.

A 1993 earthquake in Japan's northern island of Hokkaido triggered a tsunami, damaging 35 fishing boats in South Korea's Ulleung Island and the east coast cities of Samcheok and Donghae in Gangwon Province.

Ten years earlier, a two-meter wide tsunami spurred by a quake in Honshu killed five people and caused 370 million won worth of property damage on South Korea's east coast.