Japan aid for city’s disaster management

Japanese expertise would soon help city’s disaster management cell. The BMC is set to enter into an academic and knowledge sharing agreement with Japan-based Kyoto University.

The decision was taken on Monday, after a delegation of three professors from the Disaster Prevention Research Institute, a division of the University, called upon mayor Shubha Raul and municipal commissioner Jairaj Phatak.

Joint municipal commissioner SS Shinde, in charge of disaster management operations, said that the exchange programme would be mainly in the field of flood and earthquake management.

“In Kyoto the authorities have implemented micro zoning techniques to prevent property and human losses during a natural disaster. We can learn from them.”

If the exchange programme is realised, science students and senior municipal officials
will be sent for training to Kyoto. “We have come to Mumbai to establish contact and share knowledge and fine tune each other’s disaster management capabilities,” said Dr Norio Okada, one of the visiting professors.