**1. Introduction**

A *tsunami* has been defined as "a series of travelling waves of extremely long length and period, usually generated by disturbances associated with earthquake occurring below or near the ocean floor … Volcanic eruptions, submarine landslides, and coastal rock falls can also generate tsunamis, as can a large meteorite impacting the ocean" [1]. Also, tsunamis may be regarded as low frequency events but with high impacts in terms of human/infrastructure/economic losses. Their power of destruction has been more than evident in recent years [2–11]. It is believed that from the time period between 1998 and 2017, the losses inflicted by tsunami disasters were a total of US\$280 billion and 251,770 causalities, in damages [7]. Moreover, the authors argue that the impact from this period has been 100 times higher than during the time period 1978–1997.

Following the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, there has been a large amount of literature published on several topics associated with tsunami science. For example, research has been conducted on the physics of tsunami waves [12], tsunami's impact and characteristics [1–3, 11, 13], tsunami early warning systems [14, 15], tsunami risk assessment [10, 11, 16], geology's perspective [17–19], to mention a few.

Recent tsunamis have highlighted the need for an effective early warning system. An early warning is defined as "the provision of timely and effective information, through identified institutions, that allows individuals exposed to a hazard to take action to avoid or reduce their risk and prepare for effective response" [20]. Moreover, the United Nations Inter-Agency Secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR) argues that an "effective early warning system" should include the following four key elements: "the knowledge of risks", "the technical monitoring and warning service", "dissemination & communication of meaningful warnings to those at risk", and "the public awareness and preparedness to react to warnings" [20, 21].

The objective of the paper is to highlight the tsunami risk in Mexico. The data presented in the paper are based on previous studies on tsunamis in the country [15, 22]. Further, a preliminary "tsunami early warning" system which aims at

integrating, for example, the four key elements proposed by the UNISDR [20] for the case of Mexico is presented.
