The government is mulling ways to modernize the nation's natural disaster early warning system, and Ministry of Civil Affairs representatives met over the weekend with disaster warning and relief experts to discuss strategies for responding to natural disasters.

"The tsunami disaster has caused unprecedented losses and shows what can happen when there is a lack of an efficient early warning and reporting system," said Zou Ming, deputy director of Disaster and Social Relief Department of the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

An improved warning system may help to reduce the economic impact of catastrophic events. Since the 1990s, natural disasters have cost the country about 150 billion yuan (US$18 billion) annually.

"Every year, the average direct and indirect economic losses caused by such disasters account for 6 to 10 percent of the nation's GDP," Zou said.

He indicated that China is in urgent need of fully integrating its disaster warning and information processing system and that it should also enhance international cooperation in this regard.

"To better share information and improve efficiency, an integrated platform should be established to coordinate all disaster warning and information," Zou said.

Under the existing system, different departments and institutions, such as earthquake bureaus and water resource and meteorological departments, monitor different types of events. Each type of event has its own warning and information processing system, none of which is compatible with the others.

The current system "guarantees that major disaster information" will reach the central government within 24 hours, with the first shipment of relief materials reaching victims within the same time frame. Funds from the central government are to be in place within three days. The country has 10 relief materials warehouses in high-risk areas, and about 56 percent of county governments have established their own such storage facilities.

Existing regulations detail responsibilities and operating procedures for responding departments in the event of flood, drought, typhoon, sandstorm, volcano, earthquake, landslide, storm, tsunami or similar occurrences.

However, an integrated disaster prevention law and policy is one of the most urgent tasks the Ministry of Civil Affairs needs to tackle this year, along with disaster prevention awareness education in schools and communities, said Zou.

Later this month, China will host a workshop with ASEAN to discuss information sharing and cooperation to establish a regional early-warning mechanism.

(China.org.cn by Wang Qian, China Daily January 10, 2005)