Pakistan's government will set up a national disaster management commission (NDMC) and national disaster management authority (NDMA) to respond quickly to all major natural and man-made disasters, an official statement carried by Deutsche Presse Agentur (dpa) said Wednesday. A decision to set up the two bodies was taken at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in Islamabad. "One of the lessons learnt from the October 8, 2005 earthquake is that we should have an organization, capable of dealing with the situation arising out of major disasters," the statement quoted Prime Minister Aziz as telling senior officials, who attended the meeting. He recalled that the quake caused a colossal loss of life and property in the absence of an "effective institutional mechanism," adding that the two bodies being set up will help authorities quickly respond to all major future disasters. The two organizations are to be set up through an act of parliament. The 7.6 magnitude earthquake had killed some 75,000 people and rendered over 3.5 million homeless while causing a massive destruction in an area spreading over 28,000 square kilometres in country's Northwestern frontier Province (NWFP) and Pakistan- administered Kashmir. --SP 22 32 Local Time 19 32 GMT
