Devastating Super-Typhoon Haiyan-Yolanda, Philippines, 2013. Photo source: ©© Mans Unides
Excerpts;
When leaders and decision makers from across Asia and the Pacific gather next month in Japan to discuss how to reduce disaster risks, their top priority will be to build resilience in a region that saw some 80 million people affected and nearly $60 billion in economic losses incurred by natural disasters last year.
That’s according to Natural Disasters in Asia and the Pacific: 2014 Year in Review report released today by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
The report said that more than half of the world’s 226 natural disasters occurred in the Asia and Pacific region last year.
And although it was a year without a single large-scale catastrophe caused by an earthquake or tsunami, the region experienced severe storms, cross-border floods and landslides, which accounted for 85 percent of all disasters, it said.
In addition, more than 6,000 fatalities were caused by natural disasters, compared to 18,744 deaths in 2013, and an estimated 79.6 million people were affected by natural disasters across the Asia and Pacific, according to the report.
Economic losses owing to natural disasters in 2014 also remained high, amounting to some $59.6 billion, highlighting the lack of economic resilience in the region, said the report, which presented a diagnostic analysis of the region’s state of resilience and lessons learnt…
