Australia, Indonesia to join forces

The Sydney Morning Herald

Australia and Indonesia will join forces to help the region cope better with extreme weather being wrought by climate change and other natural disasters. 

Australia will spend $67 million over five years to help establish a Jakarta-based centre, aimed at reducing the impact of disasters through training in areas of better risk assessment, identifying new threats and improving relief capabilities. 

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono unveiled the joint strategy on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' summit in Lima on Saturday. 

Since the Boxing Day 2004 tsunami, which killed more than 200,000 people in nations ringing the Indian Ocean, Australia and Indonesia have been working together on ways to better deal with the increasing number and severity of disasters. 

In past week alone, Australia has dealt with severe floods and storms in Queensland and the Indonesian island of Sulawesi has been hit by a major earthquake. 

"Not only only do disasters take lives, they take away the livelihoods of survivors," Dr Yudhoyono told reporters. 

"Just this week both Indonesia and Australia experienced devastating calamities." 

The centre is expected to be up and running by April 2009, and will be prepared to deal with the several regional disasters that kill around 10,000 people annually. 

A study by Australia and Indonesia found that half the world's megacities are in locations vulnerable to earthquakes, and issues like climate change, urbanisation and poor land use were exacerbating the impact of other natural disasters. 

"Also our region is subject to intense volcanic activity and now we see the consequence increase storm activity and with greater intensity," Mr Rudd told reporters. 

"With natural disasters, none of us can predict who will be the next victim, who will be hit next and often there is so little notice when they come." 

Mr Rudd said the centre would organise joint exercises to improve operational capabilities between nations and would develop the use of realistic disaster management scenarios. 

It will also aim to better integrate military assets in disaster relief exercises and planning.