Government committed to adopt Tsunami response plan
Ministry of Provincial Development and National Disaster Management permanent secretary Lt Col Inia Seruiratu revealed this during the Fiji Disaster Management Workshop at the Novotel in Lami.
He said a draft had been put together in 2004 before the great Indian Ocean Tsunami.
“This draft has gone through critics, table top exercise and workshops, still we are not confident enough to implement it,” Lt Col Seruiratu said.
“The Fijian Government is greatly honoured and privileged for the commitment and assistance made by the United States for its disaster risk management programs.
“We deeply value the commitment, contribution and sacrifices made to build up our strength and resilience in disasters.
“The workshop and exercise with cyclones in 2009 was really timely, because it prepared us well for the oncoming cyclones seasons of 2009 – 2010.”
Lt Col Seruiratu said a Category 1 hit the West in December about three weeks after the workshop and a another Category 4 struck the North and East in March.
He said our responses were more targeted, they were much faster and our operational costs were much lower, the death tolls for the two cyclones were quite small, far below the expected numbers of past cyclones in Fiji.
“We are really looking forward to this year’s scenario which is Tsunami. Tsunami has a very high impact but very low occurrence rate in Fiji, that makes it relatively unknown and dangerous,” the permanent secretary said.
Close to 60 participants from various government departments and non-governmental organisation attended the first four days table top exercise.
No comments:
Post a Comment