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Herald Reporter
THE Meteorological Services Department is mulling a plan to introduce community radio stations in provinces at high risk of natural disasters to quickly relay information on impending calamities, the organisation’s acting director has said.
Speaking at a meeting in Harare yesterday between MSD and partners from the health and water sectors, MSD acting director Mr Elliot Bungare said his organisation entered into  partnership with some Chinese to provide 24 000 radios in three vulnerable provinces. He said each of the provinces was earmarked to get at least 8 000 radios. “The purpose is to relay information on disasters or any other related weather patterns to communities in those provinces on time,” said Mr Bungare.

Although the project is still in its infancy, Mr Bungare said the deal was expected to start in 2014 as a pilot project. “This issue has always been on our agenda and initially we were supposed to get the radios and the equipment under a regional programme which was implemented by USAID, but the project failed to take off for Zimbabwe,” he said.