China still needs 100,000 more "disaster information consultants" to improve the nation's response to natural disasters, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

"China currently has about 46,000 disaster information consultants but more than 150,000 are needed to cover every village in the country," said a ministry spokesman.

After a year in which China was battered by typhoons and plagued by drought, the need to improve the country's response to natural disasters has become paramount.

"The consultants will strengthen grass-roots reporting of, and response to, natural disasters, and help build a village-level natural disaster reporting system which can collect and analyze information," said the spokesman.

Natural disasters affecting China in 2006 killed 3,186 people, causing direct losses of 253 billion yuan (US$35 billion), the highest figures in eight years.

(Xinhua News Agency January 22, 2007)