The year 2018 saw the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre) deploy to the largest number of responses since its establishment in November 2011. A total of seven responses during the year required the Centre to remain in active disaster response status throughout the second half of 2018, specifically from July 25 to December 25.

Throughout 2018 the AHA Centre was in active emergency operations mode for a total of 143 days during response periods. From the beginning of the Lao Floods in early July, the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) of the AHA Centre was in “red status” until the end of the year – a total of 153 days.

The AHA Centre’s first deployment in 2018 was in response to human displacement in Rakhine State, Myanmar, that had been prevalent since August 2017. The primary objective of the ASEAN Emergency Response and Assessment Team (ASEAN-ERAT) deployment to the country in January 2018 was to monitor Disaster Emergency Logistics System for ASEAN (DELSA) relief items that had previously been dispatched in 2017, as part of the effort to support the repatriation process of displaced populations returning from Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.