India offers to set up disaster warning centre
DHAKA, Thursday (Reuters) India offered to set up a disaster warning
centre in New Delhi following the December tsunami which left nearly
230,000 people dead or missing, Bangladesh said.
The offer came as seven South and Southeast Asian countries, meeting
in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka, agreed for the first time to cooperate on
disaster management.
The early warning centre would be able to alert countries in the
region to another tsunami or other natural disasters, Bangladesh Foreign
Secretary Hemayetuddin told a news briefing.
India and Bangladesh are regularly battered by cyclones and flooding.
Hemayetuddin did not elaborate on when the centre would be set up or how
it would operate.
He was speaking after a meeting of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for
Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC).
"All issues of common concern were discussed at today's meeting,
where India has formally offered to set up a (warning) centre in New
Delhi," Hemayetuddin said. He said the offer was made following the Dec.
26 Indian Ocean tsunami which caused massive destruction in Indonesia,
Sri Lanka, Thailand and India.
BIMSTEC, which groups Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri
Lanka and Thailand, was set up in in June 1997 primarily to promote
socio-economic cooperation.
The countries also agreed on Wednesday to expand their cooperation to
cover terrorism, but no details were immediately available.
Bangladesh Foreign Minister M. Morshed Khan told the meeting other
new areas of cooperation would include education, public health and the
environment.
Delegates discussed progress in areas including trade and investment,
technology, energy, transportation, communication, tourism and
fisheries. |