Set up regional crisis centre to tackle disasters, Singapore tells Asean
Defence minister advocates setting up a regional command control centre to step in when Asean governments are 'overwhelmed' by events
Singapore has proposed hosting a regional crisis command centre that would help co-ordinate governments’ efforts after major natural disasters, the city-state’s defence minister said on Thursday.
“We were obviously struck over the last decade by how many disasters there were” in the region, said Ng Eng Hen, citing earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons that have cut a swathe of destruction from the Philippines to Japan.
“We recognised in the first critical 24, 48 hours, it is actually very difficult for the affected country to be able to set up a C2 [command and control] centre, for the very reason they’re the ones hit,” said the minister, in Hawaii for an Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting.
“You give the information you feel comfortable with ... We take all that information, fuse it and then pump it out. It’s worked quite well.”
With communications knocked out, governments at the centre of a natural disaster often are “overwhelmed” and don’t have the ability to manage international offers of help, he said.
“In the discussion we realised what was really needed was a crisis centre that was stood up all the time, which of course could be scaled up [as needed],” he said.
At the Asean gathering in Honolulu, defence ministers welcomed Singapore’s proposal to host the crisis centre at Changi naval base, Ng said.
The agenda for this week’s Asean meeting – focused on improving co-operation for humanitarian assistance – has taken on new importance in the wake of missing Flight MH370.