RI opens emergency disaster hotline

RI opens emergency disaster hotline

MALAYSIA: Indonesia's top envoy in Malaysia is setting up an
emergency hotline between key officials in the two countries to
cut bureaucracy in dealing with disasters such as the recent haze
crisis, a report said on Friday.

Ambassador Rusdihardjo has prepared a directory containing
contact details of key personnel based in six Indonesian
provinces of Aceh, North Sumatra, Riau, Kepulauan Riau, Jambi and
Kepulauan Belitung, and will expand it to cover Kalimantan on
Borneo island, the Star daily said.

The Indonesian government has endorsed the project and
Malaysian authorities will be invited to send details of their
key personnel to be included in a joint emergency directory, he
told the newspaper.

"We need to work on standard operating procedures and the
first step is to establish an emergency hotline," he said.

"Besides dealing with the haze, we can also use the directory
to alert each other on terrorism and smuggling activities. We can
call each other at the local level and work on immediate
remedies, instead of awaiting directions from the central
government."

The move was spurred by criticisms that the two governments
were slow to act during a severe haze that cloaked large parts of
Malaysia, including the main city of Kuala Lumpur, earlier this
month and pushed air pollution level into the hazardous range. --
AP