New centre to coordinate relief efforts

In an endeavour to better coordinate relief efforts between countries when natural disasters strike, the new Changi Regional Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Coordination Centre (RHCC) was set up at the Changi Command and Control Centre yesterday.

The RHCC, which will be operational next year, will not only help in the coordination of deployment of foreign military assistance into disaster areas. It can also disseminate timely information and warnings about predictable events, such as typhoons, to partnering militaries by culling data from regional disaster and early warning centres.

Talks are in progress to engage several countries in the region.

Yesterday, Second Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing stressed the importance of delivering more effective disaster responses, given that the Asia-Pacific region is the most disaster-prone area globally.

“The RHCC seeks to facilitate decision-making by militaries and minimise duplication and gaps in the provision of foreign military assistance,” said Mr Chan, who is also the Minister for Social and Family Development.

Director of joint operations Brigadier-General Desmond Tan reiterated that the Changi RHCC is not a command centre. “The RHCC is a coordination centre. It does not command or decide which nations should provide for the affected nation,” he said. “Our role is to facilitate these contributions, so that the needs can be met by the resources that are contributed by the foreign countries.”

Depending on the situation at hand, Changi RHCC would be helmed by nine to 50 Singapore Armed Forces personnel who will monitor an area with a radius of 3,000km.

Plans for the centre were first announced during an informal Association of South-east Asian Nations-United States Defence Ministers’ meeting in April, when Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen offered to host the regional coordination centre in the wake of the recent Typhoon Haiyan, which struck the Philippines, Vietnam and southern China.

Yesterday, both Major-General Jet Velarmino from the Philippines Army and Rear Admiral Hiroshi Yamamura from the Japan Self-Defence Forces, who were at the regional Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief conference yesterday, agreed that Changi RHCC will be of great help to disaster relief in the region.

“Coordinating and networking will be easier because we will be talking to only one (organisation) that has integrated the contributing armed forces,” said MG Velarimino. TAN SHI WEI