Experts and officials from around the world agreed to try to cut the number of deaths in disasters over the next decade and promised to set up a tsunami warning system at a conference that ended on Saturday. But aid workers said the framework agreement, which the United Nations hopes will halve the number of people killed in natural disasters, lacked detail on the steps needed to achieve its aims. The death of more than 225,000 people in last month's Indian Ocean tsunami had made an early warning system a top priority at the five-day U.N.-sponsored conference on disaster reduction in the Japanese city of Kobe. U.N. officials have promised to have a warning system up and running in the Indian Ocean within 12 to 18 months. The main purpose of the meeting was convincing wealthy donor countries to invest small amounts of aid in the hope of reducing death and destruction when disaster strikes in developing nations. The conference in Kobe, where 6,433 people were killed in an earthquake a decade ago, adopted a framework agreement to be implemented over the next 10 years.
