BALI, INDONESIA ¨C Students scrambled to safety as sirens blared during a tsunami drill on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Tuesday, part of a campaign to prepare for disasters in the quake-prone country.
Students at the Tanjung Benoa 2 elementary school took cover under their desks when the quake drill began, and then followed a tsunami evacuation route to the roof of a nearby hotel.
The exercise was part of a joint project by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Japan¡¯s government to raise awareness among children in 18 Asia-Pacific nations.
¡°Indonesia and Japan have the same high risk of natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunami ... so it¡¯s very reasonable that Indonesia is given priority in this project,¡± said Hirohisa Chiba, Japan¡¯s consul general to Indonesia.
Indonesia was the country worst-hit in 2004 by an Indian Ocean tsunami triggered by a 9.1 magnitude earthquake. The province of Aceh on the northwest tip of Sumatra island bore the brunt of tsunami, with at least 168,000 killed.
Huge tsunami slammed into Japan¡¯s northeast coast in 2011, killing about 18,000 people and prompting authorities to revise warning systems and evacuation plans to save more lives.
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