Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2017-07-04

Construction of Safety Centres in the 25 Districts to house the people affected with Disaster Situations

- The establishment of safety centres make it possible for temporarily accommodating the people evacuated from the affected areas for safety as soon as the order of evacuation is given, in a situation of a sudden disaster and providing them with other reliefs effectively. Presently, the religious and school buildings are more commonly used as temporary safety centres and due to the inadequacy of facilities available in them and as the use of school buildings adversely, it affects the school children in their educational activities a proposal has been made to construct common safety centres at district level to be used in any disaster situation.

Accordingly, taking into consideration, a proposal made by Hon. Anura Priyadharshana Yapa, the Minister of Disaster Management, the Cabinet granted approval to construct 100 safety centres islandwide so as to cover all the 25 districts within the period from 2018 to 2020 which could facilitate 100 to 200 people at disaster situations and to design a method for the constructive use of the said buildings and the resources available at times when the centres are not in use as disaster situation camps.