Japan, China, S. Korea tackle quake-resistant reinforcement+

KOBE, Oct. 31 Kyodo -
Ministers in charge of disaster prevention from Japan, China and South Korea
agreed Saturday to promote cooperation between the three Asian countries on
improving the earthquake resistance of buildings and facilities.
Seiji Maehara, Japan's state minister in charge of disaster prevention, Luo
Pingfei, China's vice minister of civil affairs, and Park Yeon Soo,
administrator of South Korea's National Emergency Management Agency, also
called for the sharing of information and technology related to flood
prevention and protection amid concern over the impact of climate change.
After the meeting, the ministers signed a joint statement aimed at enhancing
efforts in such areas as well as cooperation in sharing satellite data used to
prevent natural disasters. Later in the day, Maehara revealed a plan to hold a
disaster prevention conference involving 28 Asian countries in Kobe next year.
Saturday's talks took place in line with an agreement to hold regular meetings
reached by the three countries following the magnitude 8.0 earthquake that hit
the western Chinese province of Sichuan on May 12, 2008, which left more than
88,000 people dead.
At a trilateral summit in Fukuoka in December that year, then Japanese Prime
Minister Taro Aso, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and South Korean President Lee
Myung Bak agreed to hold the first ministerial meeting in Japan, and Kobe,
which was devastated by the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, was selected to host
it.
==Kyodo