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Governments, agencies attempting to learn lessons

Officials from the UN, World Bank, governments and humanitarian groups launched talks yesterday on how lessons learned from the Dec. 26 tsunami can help Asia better prepare for threats ranging from diseases to terrorism.

"This [tsunami] experience has set new benchmarks for international cooperation," Defense Minister Teo Chee Hean of Singapore, where the two-day conference was held, said in opening remarks.

The calamity prompted the mobilization of the largest disaster relief operation on record.

"It provides us with a useful model of cooperation which can be applied across a wider range of complex multinational challenges -- from health hazards like severe acute respiratory syndrome, to environmental threats like the haze, and transnational security threats like terrorism," Teo said.

SARS has killed 774 people worldwide -- mostly in Asia -- since the disease was officially recognized in 2002. Teo was also referring to smoke haze, mostly from illegal land-clearing fires in Indonesia, that has repeatedly choked other parts of Southeast Asia in the mid-year dry season.

The Dec. 26 earthquake and ensuing tsunami that struck 12 countries from Asia to Africa killed more than 178,000 people and left nearly 50,000 more missing and presumed dead.

The two-day conference is hosted by the Singapore International Foundation.
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