�鶹��ý

Nicaragua: ‘It’s scary to listen to the sounds of nature’

Women and girls in Honduras are at high risk in the aftermath of Hurricane Eta. More than 400,000 women have been directly affected by the widespread destruction and are now left without access to essential health services. More than 1.6 million people throughout the country have been affected. Some 12,000 are now staying in shelters, a precarious situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. UNFPA is supporting a rapid needs assessment and working to restore access to sexual and reproductive health services.

Typhoon Goni left several towns inaccessible and destroyed thousands of homes in the Philippines. WFP is working with UN sister agencies to gauge the food, shelter, electricity and emergency telecommunication requirements of survivors.

In 2020, World Tsunami Awareness Day (5 Nov) encourages the development of national and community-level, local disaster risk reduction strategies to save more lives against disasters. By the year 2030, about half of the world's population will live in coastal areas exposed to flooding, storms and tsunamis. Having plans and policies in place to reduce tsunami impacts will help to build more resilience and protect populations at risk. The UN works with partners to educate the public, organize drills, and create evacuation routes to avoid heavy loss of life when the next tsunami comes.

A UN report published to mark the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction on October 13, confirms how extreme weather events have come to dominate the disaster landscape in the 21^st century. The report “” registers a sharp increase of extreme weather events over the previous twenty years, with much of the difference explained by a rise in climate-related disasters. Globally, there were around 6,700 climate-related disasters including severe floods and storms in the time-period 2000-2019 compared to 3,600 climate-related disasters compared to the time-frame 1980-1999.

Reducing climate change effects and risks in Bosnia and Herzegovina

This year’s International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction is all about governance. You can measure good disaster risk governance in lives saved, reduced numbers of disaster-affected people and reduced economic losses. COVID-19 and the climate emergency are telling us that we need clear vision, plans and competent, empowered institutions acting on scientific evidence for the public good. Good national and local strategies for disaster risk reduction must be multi-sectoral. It’s time to raise our game if we want to leave a more resilient planet to future generations.

Every year, the (UNDRR) works with thinkers, practitioners, experts and innovators to investigate the state of risk across the globe: highlighting what’s new, spotting emerging trends, revealing disturbing patterns, examining behaviour, and presenting progress in reducing risk. The findings make up the .

Cities are the front lines in dealing with disasters and are a major emphasis of the . They are particularly vulnerable to increasingly frequent and extreme weather hazards, such as storms, climate change impacts, including water shortages, environmental degradation and unsafe construction in seismic zones. the Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient.

Prepare to Win: Tsunami Awareness and Preparedness in Sri Lanka

The ongoing  have focused media attention on wildfires more generally and their link to biodiversity and habitat loss, as well as global heating. We take a look at the some of the different types of wildfires, assess their impact and what is causing them, and why accurate, real-time data is so important for wise action to curb them. We need to better understand the different drivers of wildfires and be able to prioritize which wildfires cause the most environmental damage. “The trick is to marshal the relevant data to make it useful to governments and that’s where platforms like the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP’s)  can help,” says Pascal Peduzzi, Director of UNEP’s Global Resource Information Database in Geneva.

From one crisis to another

Tsunamis are rare events, but can be extremely deadly, with a death toll per disaster surpassing any other natural hazard. In 2019,  promotes Target (d) of the "," which focuses on reducing damage to critical infrastructure and disruption of basic services. By 2030, about half of the world's population will live in coastal areas exposed to flooding, storms and tsunamis. Investing in resilient infrastructure, early warning systems, and education is critical to saving people and protecting their assets against tsunami risk.

Held every 13 October, this year’s edition of the Day calls for substantially reducing disaster damage to critical infrastructure and disruption of basic services. Given the high death tolls, notably in earthquakes and tsunamis, it is especially important that great care is taken to ensure that schools and hospitals are built to last by ensuring that location and hazard-appropriate planning regulations and building codes are enforced. Other areas of critical infrastructure include potentially life-saving utilities and services such as food and water supply, energy, telecommunications and transport.