Next month, on 22-24 March 2014,a big event will be conducted in Mentawai Island, Indonesia. According to the official announcement, participants from no less than 18 countries will be attending the event, the "Mentawai Megathrust - Disaster Relief Exercise", code-named "MM – DiREX 2014."

I am no doubt so much interested to be able to participate in the event. I am still struggling to find my way to go there, but my mind has already convinced myself that the event must be something worth it to attend because it will give us lot of information and tips on how to keep ourselves alert and prepare necessary things to anticipate the possible disaster in future.

We never know when or where the disaster will come, while actually many of us are living in areas vulnerable to natural hazards. That's why we need to know about disaster-related training s and many aspects of Early Warning System (EWS).

I learned a lot about this when I got a chance to join scientific field along the border of Switzerland and Italy. I was really impressed with all the vivid explanations told by the scientists who accompanied us there. Various kind of EWS equipment were demonstrated to familiarize us with the potential role of environmental management in supporting early warning and disaster risk reduction. We were also challenged to give input on how to include disaster risk and vulnerability components into existing environmental assessment instruments.

It's at this moment that I feel I am really really still in need of more and more knowledge on environmental science, disaster risk reduction concepts, as well as early warning system technology. Whenever you know any event correlated to these things, grateful if you could let me know. I'll do my best to find my way to go there. Or maybe we can go together?