Press release

The International Strategy for Disaster Reduction secretariat is opening a new office, the “ISDR Hyogo Office” in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan, to work more closely with Japanese institutions that have extensive experience and expertise in disaster risk reduction

10 October 2007. To mark the International Day for Disaster Reduction and the conclusion of its two year campaign on education, the secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction is launching today a new publication showing how children

Professor Yoshiaki Kawata from the Disaster Prevention Research Institute in Japan, and Tony Gibbs, a highly respected Caribbean engineer in building safety, have been selected as the two 2007 Sasakawa Laureates.

As hurricane Dean is heading toward Belize and the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, the ISDR secretariat recalls that early warnings systems are the most efficient systems to save lives against disasters and need to be further implemented at

As hundreds of people have lost their lives and millions have lost their livelihoods this monsoon season in Asia, the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction secretariat is urging governments to speed up their implementation of the Hyogo Framework

“Heavy rainfalls in Pakistan, India and the Northern England and heat waves in Greece, Italy and Romania are indications of what might happen more frequently and more severely across the globe as a consequence of the global warming”, said Sálvano Briceño

Some of the world’s greatest cities risk becoming disaster hotspots, delegates from 120 nations warned today in Geneva at the close of the world’s first Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction. Experts among more than 1,000 delegates warned that one

Over 120 governments meet today in Geneva to launch the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, a gathering that is expected to become the major international consultative forum on disaster reduction. Chaired by Mr. John Holmes, the United Nations

Ever increasing numbers of natural hazards (particularly as a result of earthquakes and floods) occur in the Middle Eastern and North African countries. More than 26,000 people were killed in 2003 in the Bam earthquake in Iran and another 2,200 died in

“The world must act urgently to cut the risk from extreme weather events linked with climate change”, Salvano Briceño, Director of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction secretariat, said this morning on the publication of the