People are encouraged to revive the traditional early warning disaster alert methods to sense a natural event than to rely entirely on meteorology department.
This was sentiment of Pacific Community-focused Integrated Disaster Risk Reduction Project (PCIDRR) project field officer Yasawa, David Owen during the Health Emergency, Disaster and Climate Change Adaptation workshop at the Fiji School of Medicine yesterday.
"We are going through climate changes but we can still use the early warning systems our ancestors used to prepare for a cyclone, tsunami or an earthquake," he said.
A possible warning for a cyclone, Mr Owen explained, was when bees built their hives on the ground. The disappearance of animals would be a possible sign for an earthquake, and the possibility of a tsunami was indicated through animals running to higher grounds, he said.
"Some people may know about some of these techniques but they are not using it. The older generation should pass on knowledge to the younger generation," Owen said.
