has affirmed that the Government is working to reduce to a minimum the number of victims linked to El Niño Phenomenon, whose most significant effects in Peru are forecast to be witnessed from the first weeks of January 2024.
During his participation in the
Seminar for Journalists on Reactive Disaster Risk Management in the Context of El Niño Phenomenon, organized by the
National Civil Defense Institute (Indeci), the government official underlined the need to educate, organize, and prepare the population that might be affected, plus authorities.
"A human life cannot become just another statistic. We are convinced of the development of the (Peruvian State prevention) plan to reduce the loss of human lives to zero. That is what we are getting prepared for. We must educate, organize, as well as prepare our population and authorities," he said in remarks to Andina news agency.
The Cabinet member warned that the highest number of human losses during natural disasters is due to reckless behavior by citizens for not measuring the danger they face.
"We have been able to observe that 80% of the loss of human lives comes from lack of knowledge or recklessness when trying to cross a speed bump, a river, or a stream that had become activated," he indicated.
Role of regional and local governments
The role of regional and local governments is to assume responsibility for addressing the emergency.
Organizations such as Indeci and Cenepred are supporting various preparedness actions for possible disasters associated with the upcoming El Niño Phenomenon.
"We would like to provide all resources to the entire country, in terms of disaster management, but there are priorities at this moment: for the contingency linked to heavy rains in the northern zone, whereas the situation emerging in the southern zone is the lack of water resources due to El Niño," he specified.
The high-ranking official mentioned that the
Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) has made a disbursement of close to S/110 million (about US$29.33 million) for more than 300 Peruvian districts' contingency actions in the face of emergencies and the projections for the coming months.
“We have been working for more than four months on the declaration of a state of emergency, budget allocation, works and execution of (public) works by the Ministries of Agriculture, Housing, Defense, Transportation-Communications, and others,” he mentioned.
Multi-sector work