New Delhi: Describing man made disasters including those caused deliberately as more dangerous than natural ones, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani on October 29 warned that a "real threat" now existed in the use of weapons of mass destruction by terrorists.

"There is a real threat today of disasters through weapons of mass destructions including nuclear, biological and chemical-related ones," Advani said and called for greater regional co-operation at political, operational and scientific levels to deal with such situations.

Inaugurating a seminar on "regional co-operation for disaster reduction", he referred to the September 11 terror strikes in US, the attack on Parliament, the recent Bali bombings and the Moscow theatre hostage drama and said "each of these incidents have severely stressed the disaster management capabilities of the countries involved".

He said the Bhopal gas tragedy, which affected generations, was borne out of "culpable negligence and callousness".

But the "deliberately caused disasters are even worse. These are being done by the enemies of Democracy, as also of humanity and civilised society", Advani said.

Stating that the government was taking steps to put in place a comprehensive disaster management mechanism in the next few years, Advani said time had come to develop a South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) disaster management forum for co-operation.

PTI