Search
Results for " "
Displaying 15 of about 58 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…
GENEVA, 25 April 2013 - The Head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), Margareta Wahlström, today extended condolences to the families of those who have lost loved ones in the collapse of an eight-storey building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and reiterated that Dhaka is also in a high risk earthquake zone.
In meetings last year in Dhaka, Ms.…
GENEVA, 11 April 2012 - Following a massive earthquake earlier today in the Indian Ocean and the threat of a tsunami, Indonesian President and UNISDR Global Disaster Risk Reduction Champion, Susilo Bambang Yudhyono, told the press, "Our early warning system is working well". There were no tsunamis in Banda Aceh or other places which were hard hit by the…
GENEVA, 12 June 2012 - UNISDR chief Margareta Wahlström today congratulated Switzerland for getting ready to face the consequences of a major earthquake even if the last one happened over 1,000 years ago.
"It is good to see Switzerland setting an example for earthquake preparedness. Taking this threat seriously and involving its neighbors in an ambitio…
PARIS, 20 November 2012 - It's a scenario from hell which could rival the 2010 Haitian earthquake in terms of human losses.
Conservative estimates are that the next big earthquake could result in 100,000 dead, 200,000 injured and one to two million people displaced in the fabled Kathmandu Valley where memories live on of the 1934 earthquake which took…
SENDAI, 9 October 2012 - UNISDR today recognized Sendai, the largest city in Japan's tsunami-struck region of Tohoku, as a role model for the Making Cities Resilient Campaign for "promoting community-based disaster risk reduction and empowering people to act on disaster risk reduction."
Following the Great Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in March 2011, Se…
Seismic risk has taken on a different meaning this week with the trial opening in Italy of six scientists charged with failing to predict the L’Aquila earthquake that killed 309 people in 2009 and left 70,000 people homeless. The scientists and one official are charged with manslaughter.
The trial puts under the spotlight one of the most difficult area…
BEIRUT/GENEVA, 21 October 2011 – UNISDR Chief, Margareta Wahlstrom, today welcomed the news that both the Lebanese Army and the National Institute of Administration, the country’s civil service, are to make disaster risk reduction a core element of staff training.
She said: “This is a welcome signal from the new government of the importance it attaches…
By Yuki Matsuoka and Etsuko Okazaki
KOBE, 17 October 2011 - Recognizing the importance of risk reduction, the Japanese city of Saijo, located in Ehime prefecture on Shikoku Island, expanded their disaster risk reduction (DRR) education program to train children and young people to be future leaders in DRR. On 14 October, a lecture program was organize…
5 April 2023, The United Cities and Local Governments Middle East and West Asia Section (UCLG-MEWA) organized a webinar on the critical role of local governments in disaster management. The webinar was conducted in English, Turkish, and Arabic and featured prominent speakers, who shared their valuable insights and experiences on disaster management, mit…
VICTORIA, Seychelles, 2 October 2016 – A multinational tsunami drill in the Indian Ocean has taught Seychelles key lessons about how to save lives in the event that a potentially deadly wave strikes in the future, according to senior officials in the island nation.
Mr. Paul Labaleine, Director of Seychelles’ Division of Risk and Disaster Management, sa…
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, 16 January 2017 – Seven years on from the devastating earthquake in Haiti, countries from across the Caribbean are working hard to reduce the risks posed by seismic threats, as part of their wider drive towards sustainable development.
The magnitude-7.0 quake of 12 January, 2010, claimed around 150,000 lives and affected over thre…
MELBOURNE, Australia, 13 May 2016 – It’s 6:00 am one September day when a powerful undersea earthquake rocks the Makran Trench along the coast of Pakistan and Iran. Minutes later, the tsunami warning centres in India and Indonesia issue simultaneous alerts, followed rapidly by their counterpart in Australia, and authorities across the Indian Ocean swing…
GENEVA, 28 April 2016 - One of the world’s most ambitious low-cost housing reconstruction programmes ever to be undertaken in a seismic zone is due to get underway this week following first anniversary of the 25 April Nepal earthquake.
Nepal’s new Reconstruction Authority and its partners are embarking on a programme to provide over 500,000 low-c…
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…