Participants of a symposium held by China's top advisory body urged the country to make greater efforts in monitoring and assessing possible meteorological disasters.

"We should learn from the prolonged snow storms in the southern parts of China in the past month, and perfect our early-warning system and emergency-response mechanism against meteorological hazards," said Zheng Guoguang, China Meteorological Administration (CMA) head, in Beijing on Thursday.

He attributed the rare prolonged snowstorms and low temperatures, the worst winter weather in 50 years in some areas, mainly to abnormal atmospheric circulation and La Nina, the climatic opposite of El Nino.

He added the snow havoc also exposed problems the meteorological departments should work to improve.

"The meteorological departments have to some extent miscalculated the snowstorms with regards to their durations, intensity and influences over the transportation and power supply sectors of the country," Zheng said.

He also lamented the "insufficient cooperation" between meteorological departments and transport and power supply departments, as well as the public's lack of knowledge of meteorological disasters.

Zheng's comments were echoed by Qin Dahe, former CMA head, who was also present at the symposium. He urged the country to strengthen potential meteorological disaster evaluations to keep key industries and residential areas from frequent disaster-stricken areas.

However, no specific agenda to improve monitoring and assess possible meteorological disasters was set at the meeting.

Disasters caused by prolonged low temperatures, icy rain and heavy snow in the southern part of China in the past month have killed 107 people and left eight others missing as of February 12, Civil Affairs Minister Li Xueju said on Wednesday.

Direct economic loss was estimated at 111.1 billion yuan (about US$15.3 billion).

The CMA pledged late last month to invest 3 billion yuan (about US$411 million) to boost monitoring and early warning systems against meteorological disasters.

The project would specifically target Chinese residents in remote mountainous regions, according to the administration.

(Xinhua News Agency February 15, 2008)