Indonesia's Bali wants to cooperate with China for developing volcano warning system: official

JAKARTA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- The head of the Emergency Operation Center of Indonesia's Bali Province has expressed willingness to cooperate with China in the prevention and warning of volcanic disasters.

Igde Made, director of the centre, told Xinhua on Monday that the warning system for monitoring volcano Mt Agung needs to be upgraded, but it was very dangerous to manually retrieve the data and information recorded by the monitoring equipment installed around the volcano.

He welcomed the Chinese counterparts to join his center's development and upgrading of the volcano early-warning system, and gave some technical supports to the Indonesian side.

According to the official, since the emergency response plan was launched in late September, Bali has evacuated over 60,000 inhabitants due to volcanic eruptions and resettled them at 214 temporary shelters in 10 counties.

The Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) is the technical implementation unit of the Bali Provincial Disaster Management Agency. It functions as a collector, processor, presenter of disaster information and data to help evacuation, rehabilitation and reconstruction.

Volcanic mountain Agung in Bali has been active since September, the local government declared the highest-level alert on Sept. 22 and evacuated nearby residents.

Mt. Agung became active again in late November, a large amount of volcanic ash was violently ejected into the sky, resulting in temporary closures of the international airport in Bali. Enditem