Asian countries convene in Beijing to enhance regional disaster

A total of 42 countries from Asia and Pacific Ocean gathered here Tuesday to exchange views on disaster control and to enhance regional cooperation in this field.

"Since natural disasters are the common threat to people's lives and development, it is imperative to conduct international and regional cooperation," said Hua Jianmin, Chinese State Councilor and secretary general of the State Council, when addressing the opening ceremony of Tuesday's Asian Conference on Disaster Reduction.

Tuesday's meeting is considered as an important follow up action of the World's Conference on Disaster Reduction held last January in Kobe of Japan, on which the "Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015" was adopted to provide a comprehensive disaster-relief roadmap for building resilient nations and communities.

"Representatives of 42 Asian countries will go on discussing on how the political and financial commitments made in Kobe can be translated into concrete action at the regional, national and local levels," said Salvano Briceno, Director of International Strategy for Disaster Reduction on behalf of the United Nation's Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Asia, as the world's largest continent in terms of size and coastal line, has complicated climate types and the gravest meteorological and hydrological disasters in the world. It also has the world's largest number of volcanoes and holds the most frequent occurrence of earthquakes.

The number of natural disasters that happened in the last decade of the 20th century in Asia accounted for 43 percent of that of the world's total.

Calamities, such as the rainstorms and floods in Bangladesh in 1970, the terrific earthquake in north China's Tangshan, in 1976, and the tsunami and earthquakes in the Indian Ocean in 2004, had incurred great losses of life and property in the disaster-stricken countries.

More than 450 representatives from 42 countries in Asian-Pacific region and 13 international organizations attended the three-day meeting, aiming to share experiences of Asian countries' disaster control, specifying the priority areas of disaster-reduction and promoting regional cooperation in the field.

The conference will issue the Beijing Action Plan for Disasters Risk Reduction in Asia.

Source: Xinhua