Asia-Pacific bears brunt of disasters in recent years
Pastor Dale Morgan
Asia-Pacific bears brunt of disasters in recent years*
by Staff Writers
Sydney (AFP) Aug 20, 2007
Asia-Pacific countries accounted for 90 percent of people affected by
natural disasters around the world since 2000, the region's emergency
management chiefs were told Monday.
Climate change and population growth were likely to increase the
incidence and severity of the disasters, which already affect about 250
million people globally each year, said UN expert Terje Skavdal.
The Asia-Pacific region was particularly vulnerable, Skavdal told an
Asia-Pacific Economic Community (APEC) meeting in Australia ahead of the
group's annual summit in Sydney next month.
"We meet now in a period of extensive and damaging flooding across South
Asia and East Asia, flooding in North Korea, the Peru earthquake, a
strong earthquake in the Solomon Islands that fortunately did not result
in large damage, and Hurricane Dean," he said.
The 2004 tsunami alone, which struck 14 countries after an earthquake
off Indonesia, accounted for 37 percent of all recorded fatalities from
natural disasters since 2000, Skavdal said.
The United Nations was concerned that ever-larger population centres
were spreading in the most vulnerable areas, such as low-lying coastal
land and earthquake zones.
"The incidence and severity of disasters associated with natural hazards
are likely to increase under the effects of climate change, population
growth, urbanisation, desertification and environmental degradation," he
said.
"This requires us to fundamentally review and upgrade our preparedness."
Skavdal, of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs,
said that despite the increased frequency and destructiveness of
disasters, the death toll had gone down.
"In the past decade, fewer than one million people died in natural
disasters worldwide," he said.
"This is a large number, but it is one-third the number killed in the
same period just 40 years ago."
The fall could be attributed to new early warning systems and improved
preparedness efforts at a national and regional level, he said.
The meeting of emergency management chiefs from the 21 APEC nations,
which ends Thursday in the city of Cairns, aims to find ways to better
prepare for and respond to disasters.