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Displaying 15 of about 693 resultsBEIRUT/GENEVA, 21 October 2011 – UNISDR Chief, Margareta Wahlstrom, today welcomed the news that both the Lebanese Army and the National Institute of Administration, the country’s civil service, are to make disaster risk reduction a core element of staff training.
She said: “This is a welcome signal from the new government of the importance it attaches…
Seismic risk has taken on a different meaning this week with the trial opening in Italy of six scientists charged with failing to predict the L’Aquila earthquake that killed 309 people in 2009 and left 70,000 people homeless. The scientists and one official are charged with manslaughter.
The trial puts under the spotlight one of the most difficult area…
Background
The Caribbean region is vulnerable to destructive tsunamis generated by shallow earthquakes; 3.000 people have been killed by these events over the past 500 years. Based on historical evidence, the Caribbean is expected to experience approximately one destructive tsunami every fifty years.
Within this context and for the first time, the Wor…
Objective
The event will contribute to a global awareness raising campaign for World Tsunami Awareness Day with a focus on building resilient and inclusive societies. Countries, the United Nations system and stakeholders will reflect on the importance of strengthening inclusive disaster risk governance to reduce existing disaster risks and avoid creati…
TACLOBAN, 13 December 2013 – Pop idol Justin Bieber paid a surprise visit to the San Jose Elementary School in Tacloban this week. He stayed about 30 minutes, hugged the kids, sang a few songs, signed some autographs and landed on the front pages of all the Philippine newspapers.
If nothing else, his visit brought a spotlight to bear on the precarious…
TACLOBAN, 9 December 2013 – Sunday marked thirty days since Typhoon Haiyan (known as Yolanda locally) tried to rip the heart out of the Eastern Visayas region of the Philippines with winds from hell that sucked the sea along with them to take the lives of thousands and leave millions homeless.
The strength of the Philippine people in the wake of one of…
October 11, GENEVA - A meeting of ministers and heads of agencies for housing, urban development and land administration from 55 countries in Geneva this week adopted a new Strategy for Sustainable Housing which will boost implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action, the current global agreement for reducing disaster risk, across wider Europe.
The…
GENEVA, 1 October 2013 – Finland is set to follow in the footsteps of the UK this week and launch a peer review of its national implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA), the global agreement on disaster risk reduction.
The 4th European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction (EFDRR) heard that Finland is aiming for the same impact as the UK’s p…
DUBROVNIK – The UNESCO World Heritage Site city of Dubrovnik, globally celebrated for its rich past and environmental beauty, is taking steps to ensure its future is safeguarded from the threat of disaster.
The city, which has been an active member of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s (UNISDR) “Making City Resilient” campaign is taking a seri…
GENEVA, 25 April 2013 - The Head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), Margareta Wahlström, today extended condolences to the families of those who have lost loved ones in the collapse of an eight-storey building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and reiterated that Dhaka is also in a high risk earthquake zone.
In meetings last year in Dhaka, Ms.…
NEW YORK, 27 March 2013 - The UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, today welcomed the city of Hoboken, New Jersey, into UNISDR's Making Cities Resilient Campaign in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Hoboken brings to four the number of US cities who have joined UNISDR's global campaign which has…
GENEVA, 18 December 2012 - The Italian Government is urgently seeking EUR 40 billion over the next 15 years for flood prevention following a week of heavy rains that began on 10 November in the north and then wreaked havoc in Umbria and Tuscany in central Italy.
Italy's Environment Minister, Corrado Clini, recently presented a proposal to the country's…
Using a high-resolution dataset of 8.2 million households in Bangladesh’s coastal zone, researchers assess the extent to which infrastructure service disruptions induced by flood, cyclone and erosion hazards can thwart progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Climate hazards pose increasing threats to development outcomes across the wo…
Rising seas, heavy precipitation, and extreme heat are causing corrosion, buckling, and cracking.The U.S. has more than 600,000 bridges, and they’re not made to last forever.Mahmoud: “They’re designed for a specific amount of time, usually 75 years. That’s a typical design service life for bridges.”Hussam Mahmoud is a professor in the Department of Civi…
A known potential issue with the construction of reservoirs is the reactivation of ancient landslides that have lain dormant in the landscape. There are literally hundreds of documented examples, but as dam construction continues at a high pace, this problem continues to recur.There is a very good example described and analysed in a recent edition of th…