Insurance and more for Sri Lanka's disaster preparedness

Rasika Somarathna in Daily News (Sri Lanka): The Disaster Management Ministry is planning to introduce a special insurance scheme for homes in identified disaster prone areas to protect property owners against potential losses during a natural calamity.

The insurance is to be extended to home owners whose houses are located within identified risk zones subject to recurring natural disasters such as floods, earth slips, quakes etc. An official said the insurance premiums would be borne by the ministry. A proposal in this regard has already been formulated.

Disaster Management Minister Mahinda Amaraweera recently said his ministry is prepared to demonstrate earthquake resistant construction techniques for those planning to build houses or other structures in earthquake prone areas.

Minister Amaraweera said his ministry will also introduce several other measures to lessen the impact of natural disasters in the coming year. Another such measure, according to the minister is the upgrading of the Meteorology Department. He said plans were afoot to install latest equipment available in the international market to upgrade the capacity of Meteorology Department and improve its prediction capability. The Doppler radar installed at the summit of Gongala Mountain in Deniyaya at Rs 400 million too will begin operations from next year, he said....