Tue, 25 Jan 2005

FEMA-like agency

Surly Indonesia should have an effective and efficient body to coordinate emergency work in a natural disaster? Otherwise everything becomes chaotic, as we see in Aceh.

The Federal Emergency Management Agencies (FEMA) in the United States deals with matters concerning a disaster, such as educating the public about disasters, what to do and what to prepare.

In Japan, kindergarten children are taught what to do in case of an earthquake. This is just as important as the early warning tsunami system many people are talking about.

To learn more see www.FEMA.gov, and perhaps we can ask the U.S. government to lend a hand in creating a similar agency here.

T. HALIM Shanghai, China