EC offers help to deal with disaster relief

The European Commission has agreed to help Southeast Asian countries increase measures to deal with disasters and the environmental impact of global warming.

Financial support worth 10 million euros (490 million baht) will be allocated to Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma, the Philippines, Indonesia, East Timor and Thailand over the next two years to help reduce losses and casualties caused by natural disasters.

Cecile Pichon, a regional disaster risk reduction coordinator with the EC Humanitarian Office, said the financial assistance package would mainly support community-based disaster preparedness approaches through educating and building awareness on how to effectively respond to natural disasters.

"Communities are the first responders," Ms Pichon said. "The better organised and prepared communities show less damage from disasters. Vietnam was outstanding in dealing with the latest storm encounter with fewer deaths because of well-prepared policies by the government."

Patrick Fox, chief of the Risk Disaster Management Unit of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said stronger regional cooperation was needed to deal with extreme natural disasters. That included adequate and effective data systems for seasonal forecasts to limit the scope of damage.

He raised the case of Cyclone Aila hitting Bangladesh in May. It killed only 191 people, compared to the 500,000 who died from a cyclone in 1970.

"Early warning systems and effective ways to disseminate [warnings], together with the capacity to turn warnings into action, are the key elements to reducing the impact of natural disasters," he said.

According to an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, many areas in Southeast Asia are in danger of environmental degradation.

A loss of about half of the mangrove area in the Mekong River delta would turn the area into a salt marsh, it said. Populated delta regions in Southeast Asia will be at the greatest risk of flooding from the sea, it said.

Moreover, 30% of Asian coral reefs are expected to be lost in the next three decades, compared with 18% globally, the IPCC report said.

Anders Granlund, director of the Swedish Environment Secretariat for Asia, said the IPCC report, which focused on the global impact of climate change, was not enough. It should monitor small issues because information from those issues could be used to form policies that can tackle environmental problems more effectively.