ASEAN Must Prepare for Nuke Disasters

New Straits Times

18 June 2015

Julius Cesar I. Trajano

AS selected Southeast Asian states, such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia, look to utilise nuclear energy from 2020, it is imperative for Asean to start developing a regional nuclear emergency response protocol, and incorporating technological disaster and nuclear crisis into its disaster management framework.

Asean member states have been institutionalising national and regional disaster response mechanisms to effectively mobilise humanitarian response to natural disasters that typically hit the region.

Currently, national and regional strategies, and various disaster response simulation exercises of Asean and its dialogue partners, focus heavily on natural disasters, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods and typhoons, but not technological disasters.

… The writer is senior analyst with the Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) Programme, Centre for Non-Traditional Security (NTS) Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

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