James Kon
The National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC) held a Doa Kesyukuran and Doa Selamat ceremony recently for a Brunei member of the ASEAN Emergency Response and Assessment Team (ASEAN-ERAT) deployed to regions struck by the Tropical Cyclone Nalgae in the Philippines in October.
Superintendent at the Fire and Rescue Department Siti Masnur Juraini binti Jini returned from deployment from the 10-day humanitarian mission that began on November 6.
The mission comprising 11 members of ASEAN-ERAT from Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines were assigned by the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre) for a joint rapid assessment for the victims of the tropical cyclone to support operations by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).
Tropical Cyclone Nalgae made six series of landfalls on October 29, according to the AHA Centre.
As of November 11, the cyclone affected 5.44 million persons including 1.12 million displaced, 159 deaths, 146 injured, 37 missing and estimated losses of up to USD227 million, according to a report by the centre.
ASEAN-ERAT is a rapidly deployable response team to support the affected ASEAN member states during major sudden and slow on set disasters.
As of August, there were 353 members of ASEAN-ERAT from 10 ASEAN member states and managed by the AHA Centre.
The deployment of the ASEAN-ERAT members is one of the country’s commitments as stated in the ASEAN Declaration on ‘One ASEAN , One Response’ for ASEAN responding to disasters both in and out of the region.
Present at the ceremony commemorating the return of Siti Mansur Juraini, were Permanent Secretary (Safety and Welfare) at the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) Salminan bin Haji Burut, Deputy Permanent Secretary (Safety and Welfare) at the MoHA Nor Hamidah binti Haji Hamidon, the director of NDMC, and the acting director of FRD.
