Better planning needed to halve natural disaster deaths: UN

Better early warning systems need to be developed in order to dramatically reduce the number of people killed in natural disasters, the UN has said.

Officials foresee that early warning about looming natural disasters and other advance planning could halve death rates caused over the decade beginning in 2010 compared to the previous ten-year period.

In a message to mark the International Day for Disaster Reduction, the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, Michel Jarraud, stressed the importance of building a "culture of prevention".

"This could be done through further improvements in risk assessment, monitoring, forecasting for early warnings, capacity building and raising the awareness of the public as well as decision-makers through education and sharing of knowledge and information," he said.

In the decade from 1992 to 2001, natural disasters related to weather, climate and flooding killed 622,000 people and adversely affected another 2 billion, WMO said, quoting the statistics from the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters.

The total value of economic losses over the same period is estimated at $446 billion, accounting for about 65% of damage arising from all natural disasters.

This year's disasters included hurricanes in the Caribbean and the US, typhoons in the West Pacific, floods in East and South-East Asia and the devastating invasion of North-West Africa by locusts.

In his message, the Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, Klaus Toepfer, called attention to the link between environmental neglect and poverty, which together turn natural hazards into disasters.

"Time and again we see ordinary natural phenomena, such as heavy rains or prolonged dry spells, triggering extraordinary and sometimes catastrophic events," he said.

(gmcgmb)