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Better planning needed to reduce storm, quake disasters: UN expert
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  • GENEVA (AFP) Dec 06, 2004
    Governments must reduce the risk of natural hazards causing a disaster rather than focusing on emergency aid afterwards, a UN expert said, as the Philippines became this year's latest storm victim.

    Mega-cities in the developing world like Shanghai and Istanbul needed particular protection from typhoons and earthquakes, Salvano Briceno, director of the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction secretariat, told AFP.

    "The disaster is not natural, what is natural is the hazard and we cannot avoid it, but the disaster can be greatly reduced if we focus on reducing vulnerability and risk," he said in an interview.

    Extreme weather triggered two-thirds of all disasters in the world over the past decade, according to the United Nations which has included disaster reduction for the first time on the agenda of its annual climate change conference in Buenos Aires that opens on Monday.

    The need for pre-emptive action to prevent natural hazards from turning into tragedies will also top the bill when governments meet again in Kobe, Japan, next month for the once-a-decade World Conference on Disaster Reduction.

    "All governments... need to give more resources to preventing and reducing the risk rather than just coming along after every disaster to provide relief, which is just getting bigger and bigger," Briceno said.

    The international community donates some six billion dollars a year to provide emergency aid, such as food, medical treatment and shelter, for the millions of victims of floods, earthquakes and volcanoes, but only a fraction of this money goes towards awareness-raising measures.

    "If we could dedicate 10 percent of the amount to help governments at the national and local level... to invest in prevention, that would be a great achievement," the UN expert said.

    Briceno urged countries to educate people on how to protect themselves in a storm or build a house that is less likely to be blown away.

    The authorities should also think about flood or landslide potential when expanding towns and cities, as well as the likelihood of fire when planting forests and how to strengthen coastlines, such as by planting mangroves.

    Reducing the risk of a disaster, however, involves many factors unlike emergency relief, which merely requires governments to donate money.

    "You also have nice recognition on television that you are helping, so politically (emergency aid) sells well," the UN expert said.

    "The problem is that governments are not really helping because they are just providing a very quick bandaid approach to something that needs much more careful attention in the longer-term."

    The United States, Japan and other rich countries that are prone to hurricanes and earthquakes already have well-established early-warning systems, tough building standards and public awareness campaigns in place to reduce the risk of disaster.

    Developing nations, including China, Iran, India and Bangladesh, are beginning to follow suit, but many countries remain ill-prepared.

    The Philippines, where a powerful storm last week left more than 1,100 dead and missing, was well-equipped to tackle volcanoes but remained vulnerable to flooding and landslides, said Briceno in the interview on Friday.

    Tropical storms also killed thousands of people in Haiti this year, while only a few hundred died in the Dominican Republic, which shares the same island.

    Haiti used wood as fuel and logging was widely blamed for the disaster, whereas gas was the main energy source in the Dominican Republic, Briceno said.

    "It was a disaster that was expected to happen at any time... and we know that next year it will happen again."

    Countries recognise the need to educate and build safe houses to reduce the risk of a disaster, but insufficient importance is attached to such programmes.

    "They have to become a priority of national governments' policies and not just a little programme," Briceno said.

    Asked about where he thought the next disasters were waiting to happen, the UN expert said: "The mega cities... Shanghai, Istanbul, Mumbai, Mexico City, Bogota. They are all big cities in disaster prone areas."

    Droughts in Africa and storms in small island countries were also a worry, he added.




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