UN: The aftermath of the Asian tsunami tragedy reverberated yesterday around Kobe, itself devastated by an earthquake exactly a decade ago, as delegates from 150 countries gathered for the UN World Conference on Disaster Reduction.
Opening the five-day conference, UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs Mr Jan Egeland said the tsunami, which killed more than 160,000 people, showed the need for immediate, concrete measures to reduce the risks of similar disasters.
He said: "The best way we can honour the dead is to protect the living."
UN Secretary General Mr Kofi Annan, in a taped message to delegates, said: "Rarely has a tragedy made a conference so topical and timely as this one."
Organisers are hoping to win concrete pledges for cash and technical assistance to build an tsunami early warning system in the Indian Ocean, which experts say could have saved thousands of people. In Thailand, where the tsunami took nearly 5,000 lives, the government ignored calls for a warning system by one of its own officials because of fears it would scare off tourists.
Japan, which boasts the world's most sophisticated tsunami warning technology, is expected to take the lead in organising responses to the December tragedy, including the setting up of a temporary tsunami monitoring system for the Indian Ocean.
Prime Minister Mr Junichiro Koizumi, in a speech to the conference, said Japan would provide cash and technical assistance, and help build the warning mechanism on a bilateral basis and in co-operation with international agencies such as UNESCO.
A new UN report said natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes and tsunamis had blighted the lives of 2.5 billion people over the last 10 years, with Asia worst affected.