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04.02.2018 Social News

Public Urged To Adhere To Early Warning Signs Of Disasters

By GNA
Public Urged To Adhere To Early Warning Signs Of Disasters
04.02.2018 LISTEN

The Disaster Management Coordinator at the Ghana Red Cross Society, Mr Saladin Sumani Mahama has urged Ghanaians to take early warning signs seriously as a way of helping to prevent some disasters in their communities.

He explained that, the time has come for people to respect warning signs from agencies such as meteorological service and other relevant bodies to help reduce the impact of disasters in the communities.

'People should not sit back and feel that when disasters happen government and other stakeholders will come and support, we can never do a complete 100 per cent relieve, because the resources are not there'' he emphasized.

Mr Mahama said this in an interview with the media at a one day Disaster Risk Reduction and climate change inception meeting at Koforidua.

The programme was organized by the Ghana Red Cross Society in collaboration with the Swiss Red Cross as the sponsors.

The meeting was to outline the Disaster risk reduction project started by the Red Cross in 2014, which engaged and trained 20 members each in 25 most vulnerable disaster communities across the country.

These 20 members were trained in basic disaster management and response as well as preparedness, and they are to ensure that community members undertake good practices and help avoid situations that have the tendency to cause any disaster.

They are also to create awareness and ensure that the people will leave in a way that will not expose them to disasters and should any disaster happen they are the first to mobilize the people to respond.

Mr Mahama called on government to enforce the building codes and every other law relating to the environment, saying that, 'if you promulgate laws and you cannot enforce them then you should as well just forget it'', he said.

'It is a human attitude problem and so we should continue to talk for people to have a change of mind set till the majority of the people will listen and do the right thing.''

He said as a people, we should not sit back and be hit by the disasters, because in our dispensation disasters are not an act of God as it was perceived in the medieval days.

The Director General of NADMO, Mr Eric Agyeman-Prempah thanked the Red Cross Society for their continuous support to the development of disaster management reduction in the country and called for the strengthening and the collaboration between the two bodies to deal with disasters.

The participants, who numbered over 40, were drawn from the Red Cross society, Swiss Red Cross and NADMO offices across the country.

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