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Written question asked by Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Labour) on Tuesday, 12 April 2016, in the House of Lords. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 26 April 2016. It was answered by Baroness Verma (Conservative) on Wednesday, 20 April 2016 on behalf of the Department for International Development.

Afghanistan: Earthquakes

Question

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether UK government agencies were providing remote sensing data to detect, forecast and provide warning of the recent earthquakes in Afghanistan to the affected communities and government agencies.

Answer

The science is clear on this matter - earthquakes cannot be forecast with any degree of reliability. Remote sensing does exist, but can only operate in extremely technically sophisticated environments, and even then can only provide limited warning of a few seconds or minutes in which to respond. As such the UK Government does not provide remote sensing data to detect, forecast, and provide warning of earthquakes in Afghanistan.

When it comes to other forms of natural disaster, DFID funds a resilience and disaster risk reduction programme in Afghanistan which provides £9.6m over four years (2015-18) to an NGO consortium called Afghanistan Resilience Consortium (ARC). Implementation is focused in the eight northern provinces of Afghanistan which are the most disaster prone.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
HL7593
Session
2015-16
Subjects
Afghanistan Earthquakes Remote sensing
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk