Disaster management officials in Fiji, have launched three new manuals to help schools prepare for disasters.
The manuals, released last week during the School Safety and Disaster Risk Reduction Workshop, include a teachers guide, a students guide and a guide to creating evacuation plans.
The Acting Principal Officer of the National Disaster Management Office, Asea Quminakelo says there has been an increase in fires in Fiji and says it is important now to create more awareness in students from a young age, to prepare for such disasters.
"When I was young, what we used to have in schools was fire drills, earthquake drills. Those kind of things have not really been happening in most of the schools in Fiji now. That is something we want to bring back to Fiji now, through the Ministry of Education, to ensure that each school has evacuation plans."
He says one thousand copies of each manual have been printed and will be distributed to schools most at risk of natural disasters.
