TDMMO- Oct 20, 2019

Australian deputy ambassador, Mrs. Oldmeadow during her visit to Tehran Disaster Mitigation and Management Organization (TDMMO) emphasized on the importance of bilateral cooperation between the two countries in fields of disaster management and disaster risk reduction and also, sharing experiences to reduce the effects of natural hazards.

According to the Public Relations Office of TDMMO, referring the two countries' achieved experiences in occurrence of previous natural disasters, Oldmeadow said common issues such as climate change and floods are of great importance for us and finding the proper ways to mitigate the impacts of these events and other things like earthquakes is crucial therefore, the two countries can have bilateral cooperation in these fields.

She added that we have a lot of experiences in dealing with wildfires and floods due to the type of events that are happening in Australia and there are good international cooperation in these fields with other Asian countries. She continued that Tehran has very successful experiences in dealing with natural events and launch of the SMS notification system in recent floods in April is a very successful and advanced example of informing citizens.

Also, TDMMO President Dr. Reza Karami Mohammadi, described the situation of our country and Tehran in dealing with natural disasters and said that studies demonstrate that there is a high probability of earthquake occurrence in Tehran while the capital accommodates a large population and some of them lives in the worn-out textures and many of the current constructions are still vulnerable. Therefore, in addition to identifying the existing hazards, we have to look for solutions to fix them.

He added that one of the most important steps in this regard is to train citizens. These training's must eventually become cultures for them and they have to learn appropriate ways of living in vulnerable environments.

He said that TDMMO cooperation in joint international projects with Japan's JICA and Swiss SDC Agency are successful examples of our international collaborations. Regarding construction of the Tehran Earthquake Museum, Dr. Karami Mohammadi mentioned that this is another important issue in mitigation field which at present studies for construction of that is in progress. He said that construction of this museum can increase knowledge and culture of citizens in DM fields and may help reduce the effects of natural disasters across the country.

Following that, Australian delegation visited Tehran EOC and systems that are working in this center.