India offered on Wednesday to set up a disaster warning centre in New Delhi following the December tsunami which left nearly 230,000 people dead or missing, Bangladesh said. The offer came as seven South and Southeast Asian countries, meeting in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka, agreed for the first time to cooperate on disaster management, Reuters reported. The early warning centre would be able to alert countries in the region to another tsunami or other natural disasters, Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Hemayetuddin told a news briefing. India and Bangladesh are regularly battered by cyclones and flooding. Hemayetuddin did not elaborate on when the centre would be set up or how it would operate. He was speaking after a meeting of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). "All issues of common concern were discussed at today's meeting, where India has formally offered to set up a (warning) centre in New Delhi," Hemayetuddin said. --More 2106 Local Time 1806 GMT
