he government has urged delegates and participants of the ongoing 2018 International Monetary Fund-World Bank Group Annual Meetings in Nusa Dua, Bali, to remain calm following a 6.4-magnitude earthquake that struck in East Java early on Thursday.
IMF-WB meetings organizing committee Susiwijono, who is also secretary to the Coordinating Economic Minister, stressed that the government had anticipatory measures in place for managing natural disasters in coordination with relevant institutions like the Bali Police and the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB). He said that the government had also run evacuation drills in coordination with the hotels where the delegates were staying.
"We can't predict natural disasters, but we can anticipate them [...] We have prepared measures to assure the safety of delegates," Susiwijono told a press conference on Thursday in Nusa Dua.
He added that no significant impacts from the earthquake was visible across the meetings' multiple venues in Nusa Dua, and that the early warning system had not detected any potential tsunami. The government, along with the IMF, had also held meetings with the hotels' management on evacuation plans and readied a variety of measures and facilities in the event of a natural disaster, Susiwijono explained.
He also underlined that no VVIPs had canceled their plans following the earthquake in East Java.
"Five heads of state will be attending today's events, and everything is still proceeding as planned," he said.
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