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