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By FRANK ASAELI
THE holding of the first disaster exposition by the National Disaster
Centre (NDC) last week at the Sir John Guise indoor spots complex has
drawn a huge crowd.
Mothers, especially with children from within and around the city, made
up most of the participants and who learned about different government
hazard detection and monitoring agencies.
Last Friday, all awareness and free fact sheets on the different natural
hazards were given out.
Oala Mois, coordinator of the disaster exposition, said mothers and
children started turning up at about 9am who were lectured on all
disaster management issues.
He said it was important for the women especially as most of them stayed
at home and looked after the children.
A new approach ‘Step Ahead’ is being undertaken by the national disaster
center to manage and coordinate disasters in the country.
“The new approach the centre is emphasising and concentrating on is
prevention, preparedness and mitigation,” acting director of NDC Martin
Mose said in a statement.
He said it is compatible and consistent with programmes being carried
out by the regional and international groups and that of the United
Nations where it emphasised on risk management.
Mr Mose said prevention related to medium to long-term measures, which
were aimed at stopping the occurrence of an event, which could result in
a disaster.
He said mitigation was aimed at reducing the effects of a disaster on
communities when the event itself cannot be prevented.
Preparedness refers to measures taken to minimise the impact of a
disaster.
Disasters such as volcano eruptions, floods, landslides, sea rise,
famine, earthquakes and tropical cyclones in the past five years
affected over three million people and the financial assistance by the
Government and donor agencies was over K78 million.
NDC would in future carry out road shows in the districts and rural
areas.
 
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