News and announcements

'Local governments must carry out a thorough quality check on the public facilities from kindergartens to universities', says a note from the Ministry of Education ....

Storm-surge early warning system, public awareness and disaster preparedness measures help reduce the effects of cyclones, such as Nargis, that hit Myanmar on 2 May....

The Chinese President showed particular concern over disaster prevention and reduction and called for 'giving priority to the study and to forecasting' of natural hazard-related disasters...

'The advance alert will enable state agencies and the public to prepare for any natural calamity and minimize damage to life and property,' said G. Madhavan Nair, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation...

The European Parliament in a resolution stresses the need to increase the EU's capacity to prevent and to respond to increasingly acute problems with forest fires and droughts.

The UK based Met office has announced significant developments in its science and technology capability to provide more precise prediction of where and when extreme rainfall will occur....

A school principal in Sangzao, China, convinced the county government to fund renovation and reinforcement work on his school in the 1990s. The school withstood the recent earthquake....

The South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reports on the challenges ahead for the National Emergency Management Agency to implement the disaster prevention act implemented in 1998...