UN seeks preventative natural disaster action

UN's top emergency relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland has called for "more effective prevention and preparedness systems" to deal with natural disasters in developing countries.

Mr Egeland described the recent major disasters in which hundreds of thousands of people died and hundreds of millions of livelihoods were lost as "a wakeup call like no other."

Chairing a two-day meeting of the International Task Force for Disaster Prevention, which brings together UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the Red Cross and Red Crescent and Member States, Mr Egelund, at a press conference held in Geneva, said many of the people did not need to lose their lives.

"If we had had good early warning systems, much fewer would have died in the Indian Ocean tsunami. If we had had earthquake safe schools, hospitals and housing in Northern Pakistan, tens of thousands would not have lost their lives," he said.

"If we had had better levees in New Orleans, those who lived in the lower lying parts of the city would not have had to see their lives devastated."

Mr Egeland noted that in poorer countries "dysfunctional" systems were largely to blame. He pointed out that 95% of all deaths caused by disasters occurred in developing countries even though natural hazards were evenly distributed globally and that losses were up to 20 times greater in the South than in the North.

He described the situation as "one of the biggest challenges of our time and age" and said there was a need to make vulnerable people living in developing nations "more resilient to natural hazards".

The International Task Force for Disaster Prevention would in particular be focusing on the extreme danger that the tens of millions of people in 'mega-cities' in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East lived under. A quake could strike at any time, wreaking havoc.

"We need more resources for prevention and that money doesn't seem to be forthcoming," Mr Egeland said, noting that earlier this year he had advocated that 10% of humanitarian spending be oriented toward prevention and preparedness.

He highlighted that in Nepal, in the Kathmandu valley, where millions of people live and where a major earthquake may erupt, it takes 10% more to build an earthquake resistant house than to create a death trap.

(SP/KMcA)