Improved weather forecasting has helped China reduce its average annual death toll from natural disasters to 2,200 over the past six years from 5,000 in the 1990s, a senior official said yesterday.

"As a result of global warming, both the frequency and intensity of natural disasters are getting higher in China, generating greater losses in industrial and agricultural production as well as hitting transport, communications and urban life," Zheng Guoguang, director of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA), said at a televised conference yesterday.

However, Zheng said a new regulation had been implemented this month on the sending and transmitting of meteorological disaster warning signals to better deal with extreme weather.

"A provisional version of the regulation introduced in 2004 has significantly contributed to disaster prevention and protecting lives and property," Zheng said.

Last year alone, provincial and city-level meteorological departments issued 2,788 signals.

The regulation introduces logos, standards and prevention guides for 14 categories of disasters, including typhoons, rain, snow and sandstorms, droughts and heat waves.

For example, a red rainstorm logo means the amount of rainfall will be 100 mm or more within the first three hours and emergency relief teams should be put on the highest state of alert.

The regulation also stipulates the duties of various levels of government departments, Zheng said.

Local governments are required to immediately improve signal-transmitting facilities in areas with poor communications, including isolated mountainous areas, and for vulnerable groups such as schools, kindergartens and care homes.

Radio and television, mobile telephone networks, the Internet and electronic display equipment should all be used to broadcast emergency warnings, Zheng said.

"In areas that are home to ethnic group, the warning signals must be broadcast in an appropriate language, as well as Chinese," he said.

Song Lianchun, director-general of the CMA's forecasting services and disaster mitigation department, said weather-warning capabilities had advanced rapidly and China now has "meteorological satellites, 128 radars and independent numerical broadcast patterns".

China is one of the world's worst hit by natural disasters in terms of frequency, variety and losses, Song said.

CMA data suggests that since the 1990s, the average annual economic loss from meteorological disasters is more than 100 billion yuan (US$13.1 billion).

(China Daily June 20, 2007)