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Displaying 15 of about 122 resultsGENEVA, 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.…
NEW YORK, 27 March 2013 - The UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, today welcomed the city of Hoboken, New Jersey, into UNISDR's Making Cities Resilient Campaign in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Hoboken brings to four the number of US cities who have joined UNISDR's global campaign which has…
DUBROVNIK – The UNESCO World Heritage Site city of Dubrovnik, globally celebrated for its rich past and environmental beauty, is taking steps to ensure its future is safeguarded from the threat of disaster.
The city, which has been an active member of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s (UNISDR) “Making City Resilient” campaign is taking a seri…
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…
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…
DAKAR, 19 September 2016 - The government of Senegal is harnessing cutting-edge information and communications technology to manage and reduce disaster risk, with the aim of curbing deaths and economic losses caused by natural and man-made hazards in the West African nation.
The “civil protection and new information technologies” initiative was launche…
ISTANBUL, Turkey, 24 May 2016 – A major global network launches today at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul to facilitate business engagement in crisis situations through pre-positioning supplies, meeting humanitarian needs and providing resources, knowledge and expertise to disaster prevention.
Businesses can now play a central role in pre…
KAMPALA, 17 May 2016 – Authorities in Uganda’s capital city are prioritising infrastructure development, climate-smart capital investment procedures and emissions reduction in order to strengthen the city’s resilience to natural and man-made hazards.
Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) and development partners have allocated significant funding to re…
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…
NEW YORK, 31 March, 2016 - An earthquake off the coast of south-west Japan on 5 November, 1854, triggered a large tsunami that left 15,000 homes either damaged or completely destroyed.
A local farmer, Hamaguchi Goryo, noticed the receding waters and immediately recognised this tell-tale sign of tsunami risk. He set fire to his entire year’s harvest of…
YAOUNDE, 7 August 2015 – Recovering from floods that killed dozens of people and displaced thousands in June and July, Cameroon is working to rein in risk in its fast-growing urban centres.
The capital Yaoundé, with 1.8 million people, and 1.9-million-strong maritime metropolis Douala are both highly flood prone. Over the past two months, some 40,000 p…
TACLOBAN, 13 December 2013 – Pop idol Justin Bieber paid a surprise visit to the San Jose Elementary School in Tacloban this week. He stayed about 30 minutes, hugged the kids, sang a few songs, signed some autographs and landed on the front pages of all the Philippine newspapers.
If nothing else, his visit brought a spotlight to bear on the precarious…
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, October 17 – The death toll in Tuesday’s 7.2 earthquake in the Philippines has risen to 156 with 3.2 million people affected including 47,000 displaced. There have been 1,213 aftershocks recorded including 24 of which were felt.
An assessment released today by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council cites damage or destruct…