Disaster forecast: Effective strategy to deal with calamities urged

Met office to be set up in G-B.

GILGIT:

Speakers at a two-day workshop called for an effective strategy to deal with calamities in Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B).

The conference, titled “The Role of Media for strengthening Early Warning System for Floods and Droughts”, was organised here on Wednesday.

Adviser to the chief minister, Sadia Danish, said, “A meteorological department will be set up in Gilgit soon to deal with floods and droughts.”

She emphasised the need to evolve an effective strategy to deal with recurring calamities arising repeatedly in the region.

The workshop was attended by Director General (DG) meteorological department Arif Mahmood, DG disaster management G-B and representatives of WFP and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Environmentalists and journalists from print and electronic media were also in attendance.

Mahmood said the role of PMD is to monitor changing weather patterns and warn masses in advance to minimize losses.

“The forecast cannot be helpful if the public is not aware of it,” he said.

He urged the government to set up an observatory network in all eight districts to forewarn the masses about floods and droughts well in time so that they can take necessary steps to protect themselves.

The DMA Director General said that they must be ready to deal with disasters in G-B arising from its mountainous terrain and unpredictable weather patterns.

“In the rest of the country, there are risks of disasters in a certain time period like during monsoon season, but in G-B there is [chance of] a disaster around the clock,” he said.

He added that frequent avalanches, landslides, earthquakes and melting of glaciers were some of the causes of impending disasters.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 13^th, 2011.