Kobe, Japan ? The world’s nations, united in shock over the Indian Ocean catastrophe, agreed Saturday to work together to better guard their people against natural disasters, by taking steps ranging from strengthening building codes to expanding the monitoring of nature’s upheavals.

In a first concrete step four weeks after an earthquake-tsunami killed between 157,000 and 221,000 people, according to varying government tallies, the World Conference on Disaster Reduction laid groundwork for the first tsunami early-warning system in the Indian Ocean, expected to be in place next year.

The five-day, 168-nation U.N. conference concluded — after dozens of workshops and a final night of closed-door negotiation — by adopting a “framework for action,” resolving to pursue “substantial reduction” of disaster losses in the next 10 years.

This is “one of the most critical challenges” facing the world, a final declaration said, because cyclones, floods, earthquakes and other events set back human progress, especially in poor nations.

Some were disappointed the conference documents were nonbinding, committed no new money to risk reduction and set no hard targets for assessing progress.

Japan, for example, had proposed setting a goal of cutting water-related disaster deaths in half by 2015, but the U.S. delegation and others opposed such ideas.

The international Red Cross said it would continue to advocate for firm targets and more aid for disaster preparedness in poor countries. “The international community has 2005 to make concrete its promises,” said the relief agency’s Eva von Oelreich.

The chief U.N. official here, Jan Egeland, said he thought the 10-year action plan could halve disaster casualties by 2015. But “we must not fail in the implementation challenge.”

Refugees sign up for food handouts at a distribution center in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Delegates at a U.N. conference agreed Saturday to create a 0 million tsunami early-warning network for the Indian Ocean, like the one long in place for the Pacific. They hope to deploy the system in 2006.

The Kobe conference, in a Japanese port city that suffered a crippling earthquake 10 years ago, brought together 4,000 diplomats, development specialists, aid workers and others in an effort to channel experience and resources into building better human defenses against the worst of nature.

In sideline meetings, richer nations pledged at least $8 million toward the network’s estimated $30 million cost.