Search
Results for " "
Displaying 15 of about 160 resultsGENEVA, 21 May 2013 - Senior government officials from developing small island states and climate change experts have warned of a massive increase in human, economic and material losses in these countries if risk reduction measures are not taken urgently to mitigate the impacts of major hazards and climate change.
The warning was issued by repres…
NEW YORK, 9 April 2013 - Early last Saturday morning, some 1,000 residents of the city of Hoboken in New Jersey, birthplace of the legendary crooner Frank Sinatra, came out in full force and high spirits to run a special race in aid of Hurricane Sandy disaster relief in both Hoboken and its sister city Port Maria in Jamaica.
"We are still recovering fr…
GENEVA, 26 August 2013 - Small Island Developing States will this week seek to plot a course to a safer and more resilient future as part of their preparations for a major conference next year.
The Inter-regional preparatory meeting for the Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS), which opens today in Bridgetown, Barbado…
GENEVA, 25 June 2013 - The Head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), Margareta Wahlström, today predicted that the year 2013 will be a turning point in how governments around the world view the threat of floods in a new age of extreme weather events.
She said: "India, Nepal, Canada and many countries in Europe have experienced huge lo…
NEW YORK, 11 October 2016 - The risk of dying in a hurricane or flood is lower today than it was 20 years ago, in most parts of the world. In Haiti, however, the toll of Hurricane Matthew has already passed 1,000, according to media reports.
The issue of how to reach countries and communities left behind and struggling to reduce their disaster mortalit…
GENEVA, 19 April 2016 – The hundreds of deaths in Ecuador and the dozens of victims in Japan are a stark reminder of a basic fact about earthquakes: it is buildings, and not the shake itself, that claim most lives.
Collapsing homes and other infrastructure are to blame for the overwhelming majority of earthquake fatalities and injuries.
That makes str…
SÃO PAULO, 12 June 2014 – Football fans from all over the world were joined in São Paulo this week by officials representing the hopes and aspirations of 37 million people who live in 59 municipalities which are now members of UNISDR’s Making Cities Resilient Campaign.
Brazil has emerged as a flag bearer in Latin America for the four-year-old campaign…
SANTIAGO DE CHILE, 10 April 2014 - The Head of UNISDR, Margareta Wahlström, arrived yesterday in Chile, where she was received by the President, Michelle Bachelet, prior to a regional consultation on disaster risk reduction with the eleven member countries of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).
They discussed the effectiveness of Chile's earl…
NEW YORK, 1 November 2013 – Exactly a year ago, Sandy proved to be the most destructive hurricane of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, severely impacting lives and economies in seven countries.
For the United States, it was the second-costliest hurricane in its history and affected the entire eastern seaboard, causing an alarming economic bill of up…
GENEVA, 1 February 2012 - An insightful new report on the 2010 Haiti earthquake offers a scathing critique of an international community which “has much to learn from the response in Haiti where it has shown an ability to repeat its errors and shortcomings from past disasters.”
Two years after the event, the PAHO Report: Health response to the earthqua…
GENEVA, 25 January 2012 - Bequia is a delightful link in the chain of islands which make St. Vincent and the Grenadines such an attractive destination for sun worshipping tourists. With a population of 4,300 people and an area of just 18 km2, it is on the frontlines of the unfolding drama of climate change and Small Island Developing States. And, like m…
By Dizery Salim
GENEVA, 10 November 2011 – Eighteen countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have agreed to tighten up on school safety while also integrating disaster risk reduction into the school curriculum, following high-level talks on education in Panama City.
Between 1970 and 2009, over 32,000 schools in South America were damaged or destro…
By David Singh
GENEVA, 26 October 2011 – The UN has issued a flash appeal for US$15.7 million to provide emergency assistance to El Salvador which has now been pounded by heavy rains and floods since 10 October.
Tropical Depression 12-E arrived in El Salvador two weeks ago bringing more rainfall than Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and registering the highest…
RIO DE JANEIRO, 21 June 2012 - The UK's Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir John Beddington, used yesterday's UNISDR "Resilient Cities" event at Rio+20 to make an urgent appeal for scientists to use plain language if they are to play a larger role in policymaking on climate change.
"The next fifteen years are really problematic. We'll have a billion more peo…
SANTIAGO, 6 February 2017– In the midst of Chile’s worst forest fires in five decades, award-winning local campaigners have spotlighted the need to ensure that people with disabilities are not forgotten in emergency operations and disaster risk reduction.
According to official sources, the fires have hit more than 547,190 hectares, claimed 11 lives and…