Gombe — The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has advocated for a quick response from ministries, departments and agencies (MDA's) in the evacuation of the victim's of various disasters in the country.

Speaking at a stakeholder's sensitization workshop on staff evacuation drills organized by the zonal office of the agency, the North East Zonal Coordinator, Mohammed Kanar said, the issue became imperative in view of current security challenges affecting lives and properties of the citizenry.

Kanar said the aim of the drills was to ensure safety of people and properties during emergencies involving high rise buildings and creating awareness for them to know what to do in the event of disasters and to also test the level of their preparedness and housekeeping of the various MDA's. He said it was imperatives for them to intensify efforts in prevention, mitigation and disaster preparedness through increasing resilience and reducing vulnerabilities to disasters in order to ensure minimum casualties.

Also speaking during the occasion, the Permanent Secretary of the State Environmental Management Agency, (SEMA) Mr Kelmi J Lazarus urged the stakeholders to evolve new strategies of curtailing the disasters from degenerating into serious catastrophe. He said while disasters occur without prior notice, it was imperative to ensure minimum casualties through timely evacuation of the victims in order to save more lives and properties from getting into untold hardships.

He sued for the provision of the state of the art equipments to all designated states and disaster management offices, departments and other critical stakeholders to enable them mitigate and response effectively to disaster occurrences.