Weather surveillance radar was first installed in the Philippines in 1963 atop the Central Office of the Bureau (but this was destroyed beyond repair by a fire in 1978).In 1965, on its centenary, half of the weather stations across the country were already linked with each other by single side-band radio transceivers, forming an independent meteorological communication system. In 1968, the Philippines joined the Typhoon Committee formed by the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE, now Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific or ESCAP) and the WMO. The following year saw the transfer of the central office from the Marsman Building to 1424, Quezon Boulevard Extension in Quezon City. The same year also ushered the 5-year "WMO Training and Research Project, Manila". Composed of the Institute of Meteorology in the Weather Bureau and the Department of Meteorology in the University of the Philippines, the project aimed to meet the training needs of the country's meteorological personnel and to carry out research in various fields of meteorology. The Institute provided technical in-service training in various levels while the Department offered a post-graduate course leading to a Master of Science degree in Meteorology. With the implementation of the project, the acquisition of an IBM 1130 was realized and computerization in the Bureau came of age. A telemetry system in the Marikina River Basin was then set up which led to the Bureau's initial efforts in flood forecasting.