Update

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) and the World Cities Scientific Development Alliance (WCSDA) today announced the launch of the Resilient Cities Award to recognize excellence in land use planning and design and other activities that help protect communities from the impacts of natural hazards.

Some of the most dramatic images of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami came from Sendai City where tsunami waves travelled up to 10 km inland resulting in many deaths, flooding of the airport and the sweeping away of cars and airplanes.

Panama, 23 July 2012 - Concern about earthquakes and tsunamis brought together 33 Mayors in the Dominican Republic this month to express their support for the UNISDR “Making Cities Resilient” campaign and to demand budgetary support from central government for disaster risk reduction measures in their cities and towns.

UNISDR's 2011 Annual Report is now available online and reveals that its two landmark Global Assessment Reports on Disaster Risk Reduction Reports (GAR) for 2009 and 2011, have had over 200,000 chapter downloads over the last three years.

It is truly humbling to see how easily we are fooled by nature but we can also draw hard-won insights from the defeats caused by earthquakes. We used to think that the age and speed of a subducting slab governs its maximum earthquake magnitude but the Great East Japan Earthquake forever puts to rest that view.

Makati City in the Philippines has scooped an award for an innovative city-to-city learning partnership between Quito, the capital of Ecuador, and the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu.

The head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, UNISDR, Margareta Wahlström, today praised the social cohesion and community solidarity which she observed during a two-day visit to Emilia Romagna where 13,000 people continue to live in tented camps and other emergency accommodation following two severe earthquakes in May.

Governor Toshizo Ido runs Japan's Hyogo Prefecture which has become synonymous with disaster risk reduction. Hyogo Prefecture, home to 29 cities, was tragically thrust into the limelight in 1995 when it was hit by the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake which caused great destruction and the loss of 6,300 lives mainly in Kobe, Awaji and Takarazuka. Over 40,000 people were injured.

The Mayor of Mashad, Seyed Mohammad Pezhman, is leading a major push for more Iranian cities to join UNISDR's "Making Cities Resilient" campaign as ten cities from disaster-prone Khorasan Razavi Province in north-eastern Iran signed up to the campaign yesterday.

The United Nations office for disaster risk reduction, UNISDR, today officially welcomed five members of parliament from Bangladesh, Uganda, Cambodia, Senegal and the East African Legislative Assembly as parliamentary champions committed to promoting legislation for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.