UN Emergency Chief Urges Action On Disasters Today To Prevent Calamity Tomorrow
New York, Nov 1 2006 11:00AM
With global warming threatening to change the face of the planet, mega-cities looming as potential earthquake
mega-traps, and the world’s poorest exposed as the most vulnerable, the top United Nations emergency relief official is
calling for “action today to prevent calamity tomorrow” by investing in disaster mitigation.
“Over the last 30 years, natural disasters have affected five times more people than they did only a generation ago,”
Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said in new paper entitled ‘An investment in our collective future.
“The bad news is, things are getting worse as our climate changes, threatening more extreme weather and a potential
explosion in human misery. This year alone, 117 million people have suffered from some 300 natural disasters, including
devastating droughts in China and Africa and massive flooding throughout Asia and Africa, costing nearly $15 billion in
damages.
“The good news is, we are far from powerless to reduce risks and protect ourselves from nature's wrath. But we must act
today if we are to prevent calamity tomorrow. Indeed, we have no time to lose,” he added.
Mr. Egeland laid out a three-point blueprint:
No country is immune to natural disasters and mitigating and preventive measures must be taken now. “The old maxim is
correct: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. One dollar invested in disaster reduction today can save up to
seven dollars tomorrow in relief and rehabilitation costs,” he said.
Last year’s Pakistani quake when 17,000 children died in collapsing schools underscored the need to build smarter and
safer. “Risk reduction must be woven into the fabric of international development and lending policies to prevent these
huge losses,” he added, noting that the quake cost Pakistan $5 billion in damage, about the same amountᾠthe World Bank
lent it over the last decade.
Disaster risk reduction is fundamentally a matter of communication and education. “Everyone – from the head of state to
local building contractors, radio announcers, and local schoolteachers – has a role to play in making communities more
resilient to nature's hazards,” he declared, stressing the importance of well-prepared evacuation plans, better land
usage and environmental policies, public awareness campaig΅s and emergency broadcasting systems.
The UN has put disaster risk reduction on the front burner ever since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, when experts said
scores of thousands of the more than 200,000 dead could have been saved if early warning systems had existed and allowed
them to escape to higher ground in the hours between the earthquake that triggered the giant waves and their landfall.
Since then it has played a major role in developing early warning systems, not only for the Indian Ocean but other
vulnerable areas as well, based on quake and tidal sensors, alarm networks ranging from radio to cell phones and
text-messaging, and disaster preparedness training to ensure timely evacuation of vulnerable coastal areas.
While earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis have long posed deadly threats, Mr. Egeland underscored the new aggravating
circumstances. Rising sea levels and melting glaciers and polar ice caps from global warning spell potential catastrophe
for hundreds of millions of people living in low-lying coastal areas from Bangladesh to New York, China to the
Netherlands.
The risk of mass fatalities is greater given modern land use policies, rapid urbanization, and population growth.
“Today, tens of millions of people in mega-cities such as Mumbai, Mexico City, Lagos, and São Paulo live in potential
death traps: huge, densely populated slums with little basic infrastructure or sanitation that are located on fault
lines or in flood-prone areas, he said.
“The result is a human house of cards with potentially catastrophic consequences, especially for the poorest among us.
To ignore these risks is to play poker with our future,” he added. “Global warming underscores the urgency – and the
moral imperative – for action. Let’s seize this opportunity. Lives depend on it.”
ends