Asia-Pacific bears brunt of natural disasters
Tuesday, 21 August 2007
SYDNEY, Aug 20 (AFP): Asia-Pacific countries accounted for 90 per cent of people affected by natural disasters around the world since 2000, the region's emergency management chiefs were told today.
Climate change and population growth were likely to increase the incidence and severity of the disasters, which already affect about 250 million people globally each year, said UN expert Terje Skavdal.
The Asia-Pacific region was particularly vulnerable, Skavdal told an Asia-Pacific Economic Community (APEC) meeting in Australia ahead of the group's annual summit in Sydney next month.
"We meet now in a period of extensive and damaging flooding across South Asia and East Asia, flooding in North Korea, the Peru earthquake, a strong earthquake in the Solomon Islands that fortunately did not result in large damage, and Hurricane Dean," he said.
The 2004 tsunami alone, which struck 14 countries after an earthquake off Indonesia, accounted for 37 per cent of all recorded fatalities from natural disasters since 2000, Skavdal said.
The United Nations was concerned that ever-larger population centres were spreading in the most vulnerable areas, such as low-lying coastal land and earthquake zones.
"The incidence and severity of disasters associated with natural hazards are likely to increase under the effects of climate change, population growth, urbanisation, desertification and environmental degradation," he said.
"This requires us to fundamentally review and upgrade our preparedness."
Skavdal, of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that despite the increased frequency and destructiveness of disasters, the death toll had gone down.
"In the past decade, fewer than one million people died in natural disasters worldwide," he said.
"This is a large number, but it is one-third the number killed in the same period just 40 years ago."
The fall could be attributed to new early warning systems and improved preparedness efforts at a national and regional level, he said.
The meeting of emergency management chiefs from the 21 APEC nations, which ends Thursday in the city of Cairns, aims to find ways to better prepare for and respond to disasters.
Climate change and population growth were likely to increase the incidence and severity of the disasters, which already affect about 250 million people globally each year, said UN expert Terje Skavdal.
The Asia-Pacific region was particularly vulnerable, Skavdal told an Asia-Pacific Economic Community (APEC) meeting in Australia ahead of the group's annual summit in Sydney next month.
"We meet now in a period of extensive and damaging flooding across South Asia and East Asia, flooding in North Korea, the Peru earthquake, a strong earthquake in the Solomon Islands that fortunately did not result in large damage, and Hurricane Dean," he said.
The 2004 tsunami alone, which struck 14 countries after an earthquake off Indonesia, accounted for 37 per cent of all recorded fatalities from natural disasters since 2000, Skavdal said.
The United Nations was concerned that ever-larger population centres were spreading in the most vulnerable areas, such as low-lying coastal land and earthquake zones.
"The incidence and severity of disasters associated with natural hazards are likely to increase under the effects of climate change, population growth, urbanisation, desertification and environmental degradation," he said.
"This requires us to fundamentally review and upgrade our preparedness."
Skavdal, of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that despite the increased frequency and destructiveness of disasters, the death toll had gone down.
"In the past decade, fewer than one million people died in natural disasters worldwide," he said.
"This is a large number, but it is one-third the number killed in the same period just 40 years ago."
The fall could be attributed to new early warning systems and improved preparedness efforts at a national and regional level, he said.
The meeting of emergency management chiefs from the 21 APEC nations, which ends Thursday in the city of Cairns, aims to find ways to better prepare for and respond to disasters.