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| Wednesday, 23 February 2005 |
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by Ranil Wijayapala and Bharatha Malawaraarachchi Director of the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau Sarath Weerawarankula yesterday emphasised the need to educate the public on measures to prepare for situations caused by earthquakes and the falling of meteorites into the ocean, if the country is to gear itself to confront possible disasters in the future. The Director of the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau made these observations yesterday when the Parliament Select Committee inquiring the lapses in disaster preparedness in the country met yesterday at the Parliament for the second day under the Chairmanship of Chief Opposition Whip Mahinda Samarasinghe. The committee members including Minister Dinesh Gunawardena, R. Sampanthan inquired from Weerawarnakula whether there was any programme to educate the public on disasters of the nature of tsunami. Weerawarnakula told the committee that there was no such programme to educate the public. He said only university students studying Geology as a subject have a knowledge on the tsunami and there was no method of educating the public about it. "We didn't have awareness programmes on tsunamis as we were thinking according to the data that the Indian ocean was free of tsunamis", Weerawarnakula added. He also emphasised although a number of tremors were reported in the country during past few weeks there was no way to find out how those tremors occurred. "We don't have any centre to detect the lower scale earth tremors in the South of Sri Lanka since the Indian centre do not release their data to other countries", Weerawarnakula added. The Head of the Peradeniya University Geology Department L.R.K. Perera also said the Seismometer at the University was non operational due to lack of expertise and resources to repair it. Responding to a question raised by Minister Dinesh Gunawardhana he said the university had not made any formal complaint to the Government about that situation. However, he added that the JICA has agreed to send an expert to repair the Seismometer. Environment and Natural Resources Minister A .H. M. Fowzie participating at yesterday's proceedings of the Select Committee raised his objections to the Committee for inconveniencing his officials in the absence of his presence in the Select Committee. The Committee members headed by Mahinda Samarasinghe told the Minister that they can have discussions with the Speaker to sort out the problems related to this situation. Minister Fowzie said his objection was in the context of any accusations made against his officials without his presence. Committee Members Ministers Ferial Ashraff, D. E. W. Gunasekara and MPs Rauff Hakeem, John Amaratunga were present at the committee meeting. |
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