UNISDR-lead advocacy results in recognition of crucial synergies between disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation N’Djamena- Parliamentarians and Ministers from Central African countries met in Chad last Saturday and recognized disaster risk reduction measures as a main tool to adapt to future climate related disasters that are already affecting many countries in Africa.
More landslides can be expected as climate change exacerbates rainfall intensity – but their impact can be reduced, stresses the UN organization charged with coordinating global disaster risk reduction. "As this week's tragic events in East Asia show once again, people living on unstable slopes and steep terrains are particularly at risk from landslides in the wake of torrential rain and flooding," says Margareta Wahlström who heads the UN International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR). "While landslides are hard to predict, people living in landslide-prone areas can be alerted in advance if there are monitoring and warning systems in place to measure rainfalls and soil conditions." View full story
The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) and the Government of the Republic of Korea are opening Asia's first ISDR Education and Training Institute for Urban Risk Reduction in Incheon, Republic of Korea.
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Office in Incheon for Northeast Asia and Global Education and Training Institute for Disaster Risk Reduction
Leaders of the world’s eight main industrialized countries gathering for a G8 Summit meeting later this week are being urged to apply their ‘considerable influence, resources and political will’ to advance five major action points on disaster risk reduction (DRR).
The 2009 laureate for the Sasakawa Award for Disaster Reduction is geologist Dr Eko Teguh Paripurno. He receives the award - valued at US$ 50,000 - for his lifetime contribution and his outstanding commitment to reduce disaster risk and building capacity at the community level in Indonesia, one of the countries most vulnerable to multiple hazards.
In order to echo the global launch of the World Campaign for Disaster Reduction on “Hospitals Safe from Disasters” that is organized by the secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR) and the World Health Organization (WHO), with the support of the World Bank in Davos, Switzerland, in the context of the World Economic Forum, a regional launch of the campaign will be organized by UN/ISDR Asia & Pacific and WHO Regional Offices for South East Asia and Western Pacific on Friday 25 January 2008, 1300-1700, Amari Watergate Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand.
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Asia and Pacific
UN/ISDR 2008/07, 16 May 2008 Poorly constructed buildings kill people during earthquakes "What we are seeing in every urban earthquake is a result of mostly avoidable errors." Interview with Fouad Bendimerad Chairman of the Board of the Earthquakes and
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Asia and Pacific
"Europe suffers significantly from disasters in both human and economic terms. Among them, European Union countries have chalked up major losses due to climate related disasters in the last decades and have already faced major storms and severe winter conditions since January this year" said today the Belgian WHO collaborating Center for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) in a joint press conference with the Secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR).
The 6.3-magnitude quake that struck Italy early this morning is confirmation, once again that Europe is not immune from powerful earthquakes. The intensity of the Italian earthquake was 6.3 on the Richter scale comparable to the May 2006 earthquake in Indonesia island of Java, which killed more than 5000 people in the city of Yogyakarta.
2008 saw a marked increase in the number of deaths and economic losses compared to the 2000-2007 yearly average, according to the Center for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) which released the new figures today in Geneva at a joint press conference with UNISDR.
