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ALKESH SHARMA / EMIRATES BUSINESS
The region’s recent encounter with treacherous weather underlines the importance of being equipped with adequate disaster management solutions. While Oman was hit by severe floods, torrential rain and electrical storms battered UAE. Flooded roads made commute difficult, the city’s international airport was closed down, and the schools were shut. The municipality had to urge people to stay at home until weather conditions improve.
With an aim to ensure stronger emergency preparedness, more sophisticated solutions will be showcased in the International Exhibition for National Security and Resilience (ISNR) to be held in Abu Dhabi from March 15-17.
“In future, emergency response services will need to communicate more effectively with citizens and other service providers, deliver real-time situational awareness of incidents and provide better predictive risk analysis, to help prevent incidents and mitigate their damage,†said Nicky Dawson, Group Exhibition Director of ISNR Abu Dhabi.
This year’s ISNR will feature the Emergency Response and Disaster Prevention (EMDI) exhibition, the first dedicated event in the Gulf for emergency response and disaster prevention across land, sea and air. “EMDI is a must-attend event for anybody working in this vital field, as it will allow them to keep abreast of the latest regional and international trends, and help to develop knowledge and understanding in the industry,†stated Dawson.
In the past three decades, natural disasters have affected more than 40 million people in the region and have cost their economies about US$20 billion, according to a World Bank report. While the absolute number of disasters around the world has almost doubled since the 1980s, the average number of natural disasters in MENA has almost tripled, the report found.
Globally, the emergency response market will climb from US$50.4 billion in 2012 to US$131.6 billion by 2019, as interoperable communications systems that can provide real-time situational awareness to first-time responders are developed to help counter the increasing rise in incidents, according to research by Frost & Sullivan.
EMDI will showcase the latest
solutions in disaster monitoring and disaster relief, control station and signalling technology, and emergency engineering rescue.