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Displaying 15 of about 551 resultsGENEVA, 3 February 2012 - A 15-day state of disaster is currently in effect in areas on the west coast of Fiji that have been ravaged by floods which began on 22 January.
A flood watch is in place as periods of heavy rain are expected. All those living in flood-prone areas have been advised to evacuate and take with them food, water and a change of clo…
By Dizery Salim
GENEVA, 10 November 2011 – Eighteen countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have agreed to tighten up on school safety while also integrating disaster risk reduction into the school curriculum, following high-level talks on education in Panama City.
Between 1970 and 2009, over 32,000 schools in South America were damaged or destro…
NADI, FIJI, 10 July 2013 - Businesses that bounced back quickly from a recent spate of disasters have a lot to teach policymakers and community leaders about resilience, a banking executive told a major Pacific development forum today.
In the worst of three disasters in 2012, floods reached some ceilings in the Fijiian tourist hub of Nadi yet within a…
GENEVA, 21 May 2013 - Senior government officials from developing small island states and climate change experts have warned of a massive increase in human, economic and material losses in these countries if risk reduction measures are not taken urgently to mitigate the impacts of major hazards and climate change.
The warning was issued by repres…
A slow-moving tropical depression caused persistent heavy rains in the Solomon Islands between April 1 and April 4, 2014. The rains caused flash flooding in Honiara, Guadalcanal, Isabel, Malaita,and Makira-Ulawa. The flooding was the worst in living memory in some locations. It caused 22 fatalities across the country, internally displaced some 10,000 pe…
Shipping ports are crucial for the global economy. They handle the majority of trade, are industrial and transportation hubs and provide employment. But ports, by their nature, are located in coastal areas or on large rivers and are exposed to natural hazards such as storms and floods as a result.
Natural hazards can cause damage to ports and their sur…
Background
The tragic consequences of the earthquake that struck Haiti on 12 January 2010 mainly stem from a lack of awareness of the seismic threat combined with the extreme vulnerability of the country’s urban centers. Haiti’s exposure to earthquakes and other natural hazards such as hurricanes, floods, landslides, or tsunamis is very high. Their imp…
Background
Hazards have been historically localized in Timor-Leste. They include floods and landslides, and prolonged dry spells , which impact food availability, insect infestations and diseases, and increase community vulnerabilities. Rainfall patterns are influenced by regional and cyclical climate events such as El Niño and La Niña. Furthermore, t…
Background
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the voice for the environment within the United Nations system. UNEP mission is to provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and people to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generati…
A declaration by the Mayors and Local Government representatives together with National Government Officials emphasizing the importance of reducing disaster risk in Arab cities, in which the participants of the First Arab conference for disaster risk reduction recognize the vulnerability Arab cities and towns to disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes,…
Over the past 30 years in the Caribbean, floods and tropical storm damage affected 1.5 million people directly and caused over USD 5 billion in damage. The increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events stress societies and natural systems. On behalf of the International Climate Initiative of the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature…
InterFLOOD Asia 2018, supported by the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), will tackle the escalating problem of flooding in Asia head on.
The event is about mitigating and managing the potentially catastrophic impacts of extreme weather and climate change on vital infrastructure, including water, energy, com…
Over the years the need has surfaced for a more Caribbean focused conference on all possible disaster hazards. This conference seeks to bring together government agencies, academic institutions, and private sector for information exchange, dialogue and development of methods and practice to reduce the harmful impacts of hazards and disasters in the Cari…
This report follows risk-based valuation approaches to map flood zones at 10-squaremeter resolution along all 3,100+ kilometers of U.S. reef-lined shorelines for different storm probabilities to account for the effect of coral reefs in reducing coastal flooding. The report quantifies the coastal flood risk reduction benefits provided by coral reefs…
The increase in water temperatures is likely to contribute to a tendency for tropical storms to be, on average, stronger than they have been in the past. Due to its location in the Atlantic hurricane belt and like other Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
The Bahamas is extremely vulnerable to the effects of disasters and climate change, as some 80…