GHALANAI - Tribal areas are prone to numerous hazards including flash floods, earthquakes, civil unrest and internal displacement crisis, said Network of Disaster Management Practitioners CEO Falak Nawaz while speaking at a workshop on disaster risk management and practices at institutional level at the Jirga Hall on Wednesday.

The workshop was also attended by Asif, Programme Manager NDMP, Rooh-ul-Amin, assistant director FDMA, Jalil Rehman, consultant, District Coordinator FDMA Dr Irfan Bangash, representatives of district administration, health, education, irrigation, revenue , agriculture, livestock, civil defence, Pakistan Red Crescent, social welfare, communication and works, public health and civil societies organisations.

Speaking on the occasion, Falak Nawaz said that the tribal belt was located near Hindukash mountainous series and poorly-constructed mud and stone houses made the region more vulnerable to disasters like flash floods and earthquakes. He said that during recent years, former FATA came across with terrorism and extremism, which compelled thousands of families to flee from their areas of origin.

Nawaz said that to support the government in strengthening the DRM system in the region, the Swiss Development Cooperation was implementing a project, “Disaster Resilience Initiative Fata” through Care International.

 He said that the project was primarily focusing on institutional strengthening of disaster management authorities. He said that they had started consultation at each tribal district with close coordination and collaboration of line departments for development of Fata disaster management plan.

He urged the line departments to develop profiling prevailing hazards in their respective tribal districts and chalk out tehsil-level hazards profiling by using the matrix provided by FDMA to the departments and capacities available at department level that could be used for the future disaster risk management and resilience initiatives’ and what  are the gaps indentified.

In the workshop, steps for disaster risk reduction for coming 5 years and short-, medium- and long-term measures were also discussed. He said that the disaster risk reduction interventions would keep in mind that gender and persons with disabilities are included in the proposed strategies.

All the departments were asked to develop a disaster risk and vulnerability map and plan and devise strategy for any upcoming disaster in tribal districts.

======