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| Thursday, 20 January 2005 |
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Experts eye warning system for all disasters KOBE, Japan, Wednesday (Reuters) As the Asian tsunami focuses world attention on natural disasters, experts on Wednesday called for a global early warning system for all such catastrophes as soon as possible. The aim, they said, was to halve the number of deaths from natural calamities. While too late for the more than 226,000 people who died in the massive Dec. 26 tsunami, such a system for the Indian Ocean is top of the agenda at a United Nations-sponsored conference this week in the Japanese city of Kobe, itself hit by a devastating earthquake a decade ago. Although the focus is on tsunamis, officials said early warnings were needed no less urgently for other natural disasters such as typhoons, hurricanes and drought. Natural disasters such as floods, storms, earthquakes and tsunamis have killed some 600,000 people over the last decade. Japan is the site of some 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or over - including the Kobe earthquake that killed 6,433 people a decade ago - and which have also left a history of devastating tsunamis. |
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