The new well equipped Per­ma­nent Com­mis­sion of Con­tin­gen­cies (COPECO) has opened in San Pedro Sula, Hon­duras for the region. This is one of the five new region­al and logis­tic cen­tres of COPECO.

The new nation­al project has its mete­o­ro­log­i­cal radar with local cov­er­age plus neigh­bour­ing Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Sal­vador and Nicaragua. Also it was fit­ted the lat­est seis­mic dis­tur­bance mea­sur­ing devices.

Por­firio Lobo Sosa, Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic of Hon­duras in his open­ing speech said that it was a ware­house and office of logis­tics to help dis­as­ter mitigation.

He said it was the Hon­dure­nios doing the part in dis­as­ters and he acknowl­edged much of the prob­lems were for­est fires and that caused big problems.

The EMCOR Coor­di­na­tor of IARU R2, Cesar Pio San­tos HR2P spoke wide­ly about the role of ama­teur radio in dis­as­ters to many of the attend­ing officials.

The Com­mis­sioned Min­is­ter of COPECO, Lisan­dro Ros­ales, acknowl­edged the impor­tant role of radio ama­teurs when con­ven­tion­al com­mu­ni­ca­tions col­lapse in cas­es of disasters.

Also there was the Pres­i­dent Pro Tem­pore of the Coor­di­na­tion Cen­tre for the Pre­ven­tion of Nat­ur­al Dis­as­ters in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca (CEPREDENAC), Gen­er­al Direc­tor of the Nation­al Civil­ian Pro­tec­tion Sys­tem of Pana­ma (SINAPROC), Arturo Alvara­do de Icaza, who also men­tioned the good rela­tion­ship exist­ing in his coun­try with the radio amateurs.

Cesar HR2P con­grat­u­lat­ed the Pana­man­ian Gov­ern­ment for allow­ing its local radio ama­teurs to ben­e­fit from the Inter­na­tion­al Ama­teur Radio Per­mit, which can be of great help in dis­as­ter situations.

Left open for fur­ther dis­cus­sion was the appli­ca­tion of the roam­ing licence per­mit for all radio ama­teurs through­out Cen­tral America.

Ear­li­er this month at San Mar­cos, Guatemala, a 7.4 scale earth­quake hit claim­ing the lives of at least 52 peo­ple. The dis­as­ter was aid­ed by emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­vid­ed by radio amateurs.
  
— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions with Cesar Pio San­tos HR2P EMCOR IARU R2