Vanuatu Emergency Operation Centre opens

Transcript

The first ever National Emergency Operation Centre has been opened in Vanuatu.

The new centre cost over US$170,000 to establish and was jointly funded by the Japanese government, the World Bank, SOPAC and other institutions.

A Disaster Risk Management Specialist with the World Bank, Michael Bonte-Grapentin says the operation centre will act as an information and co-ordination centre and is equipped with a meeting space, ten dual display computers, four LCD flat-screen televisions, eight landline phones, an HF radio, and other electronic communication equipment. He spoke to Hilaire Bule.

MICHAEL BONTE-GRAPENTIN: What we have here is a state-of-the-art operation centre which enables the NDMO to fulfil its co-ordinating role amongst the different government agencies and external partners. Just making their efforts more effective and being able to efficiently, effectively, communicate with getting the latest information, making informed decisions on what to do in the case of an emergency, where to send resources and what information to provide to the general public.

HILAIRE BULE: So where we are sitting now, in this room, is the information centre for NDMO?

MICHAEL BONTE-GRAPENTIN: This is the co-ordination centre. This is basically... During a disaster, the disaster controller would invite different parties like the police, like the emergency services, ambulance, fire, etc, like other partners, NGOs like the Red Cross or the Vanuatu Humanitarian Team, being able to co-ordinate and discuss... In a way it's an information centre, where the information is coming from wherever the effects of the disasters are to start agreeing and mobilising resources and co-ordinating the response to the disaster.

HILAIRE BULE: Also in this room we can see directly the volcano of Tanna, the Yasur volcano. You can also help redirect information from this room.

MICHAEL BONTE-GRAPENTIN: That's exactly where we'd like to lead, is integrating more strongly the disaster response aspect with the aspects of hazard monitoring and warning, meaning the services of the MDG is providing and looking after these volcanoes, looking after the earthquake detection and being able to provide tsunami warnings more effectively. The project in itself is really targetting to provide a multi-hazard warning centre, but in particular targetting tsunamis because we do know for tsunami we do have the least response time.

HILAIRE BULE: So why are you interested in financing this project?

MICHAEL BONTE-GRAPENTIN: It's actually the government of Japan who financed the project since the big Japan earthquake. Japan has always been quite heavily exposed to disaster so they do understand the context, and they bitterly felt the effect a disaster can have in disrupting a country's economy and way of life.  So I think there's a lot of good lessons the government of Japan can actually share. And I think there's a high interest by Japan to work with Vanuatu and other countries in the Pacific to strengthen their disaster risk management capacities.