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Quake response, reconstruction efforts highly rated

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-05-05 21:12

Good example from China

"China, unfortunately for you, is a very disaster-prone country, " Holmes said. "It is so enormous you have virtually every threat that we know about and every given year there are bound to be several significant disasters."

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"That means you have acquired an enormous amount of experience, sadly, in dealing with disasters, but you've also come to recognize, earlier, I think than many others, the value of reducing the impact of those disasters before they happen," he said.

"A very good example is the work that's been done on China's main rivers in trying to reduce the impact of the flooding, which is going to happen in one way or another virtually every year, and some years can be extremely bad," he said.

"We believe that China set a good example there because this is a demonstration that money invested in those kinds of measures is a good investment," he said. "It brings benefits, it saves lives, it reduces damage and that's a better investment than money simply spent afterwards on responding to disaster after it has happened."

"I think that's an absolutely crucial lesson to the world," he said. "We face more and more disasters, natural disasters in the future, not least because of climate change, which is going to produce more floods and more hurricanes and more droughts in different areas, for example."

"Therefore, disaster risk reduction will be even more important in the future than it is now," he said. "As I say, China has a lot of experience to offer, has a lot of practical lessons to offer other people, and we hope China will play a very central role in discussing this at international levels."

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