Australian Broadcasting Corporation

It has been one year since category 5 Tropical Cyclone Marcia tore through central Queensland, leaving a $200 million damage bill to agricultural industries in the region, according to ABC. Recovery from the disaster has been mixed, with some farmers believing they have come back stronger and others still trying to find their feet...

Sune Gudnitz, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs' Pacific office, says in an interview with ABC's Radio Australia that Vanuatu's recovery from Cyclone Pam is going well thanks to early interventions...

'We always go on air advising the communities to do some pre-preparations and identify the potential evacuation centres near where they are living so they can move in the worst case scenario,' said the Vanuatu National Disaster Management Office's operations manager, Peter Korissa...

A global risk analysis study has found Vanuatu's capital Port Vila is the world's most exposed city to natural disasters, reports ABC. The analysis considered the combined risk posed by cyclones, floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, landslides and fires...

'The world is better prepared to face past calamities like the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami but it's not ready for the extreme weather of the future,' warned Margareta Wahlstrom, the special representative of the U.N. secretary-general for disaster risk reduction...

'Severe storms, for instance, have been hitting Sydney a lot in the last few weeks and have been causing a lot of damage. You don't have to think about climate change to think about how you would reduce your vulnerability to those sorts of storms or flash flooding'...

To strengthen SIDS' resilience we must see disaster risk reduction as climate change adaptation as two sides of the same coin,' said the head of the United Nations Development Program, Helen Clark at the UN conference on small island developing states (SIDS) in Samoa...

Singson and Admiral Alexander Pama, the executive director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said the government was more prepared this time, after the devastation caused by Super Typhoon Haiyan in November, evacuating people at risk in coastal and landslide-prone areas well before the typhoon made landfall...