India: Tripura to launch disaster management project in schools

"The government has launched an ambitious School Disaster Management Planning project from this academic session. Under it, teachers and students will be trained to deal with any natural disaster, including earthquake," state education department joint director Dilip Debbarma told IANS, as reported by The Assam Tribune. "The project will cover all the 4,465 schools across the mountainous State," he added.

Education ministers from eight northeastern states had emphasized the vulnerability of a great number of schools to natural disasters. An employee of an education department warned: "Thousands of school buildings, constructed more than 50 to 100 years ago, are not safe to sustain high seismic tremors."