San Francisco welcomed as role model and first major US city to join UN campaign

Photo credit

RIO DE JANEIRO, 20 June 2012 - The UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, today welcomed the US City of San Francisco as both a role model and the first major US city to join the Making Cities Resilient Campaign which seeks to saves lives and reduce economic losses in member cities.

Speaking today at the Rio+20 Resilient Cities event, Ms. Wahlström said: "We welcome Mayor Edwin Lee on behalf of the people of San Francisco as the 1,000th city to join the UNISDR's Making Cities Resilient campaign. San Francisco's participation further signifies that cities of all sizes and economic strength are prepared to take the lead on disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.

"We are also particularly pleased to designate San Francisco as a role model city for 'Advancing Resilience through the Whole Community Approach' given the City's efforts to engage its citizens at neighbourhood level in building resilience."



San Francisco Mayor Edwin M. Lee said: "San Francisco has worked tirelessly to increase our overall resilience by investing in our physical infrastructure, such as our water system, and increasing the capacity of our residents and communities to respond to and rapidly recover from disasters."

San Francisco is well-known as the birth place of the UN and as an icon of resilience around the world. The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire was one of the worst disasters in the history of the United States causing 2,000 deaths and destroying 28,000 buildings. Today the city has a profound understanding of the nature of risk which arises from its coastal location in an active seismic zone vulnerable to rises in sea-level, drought and heavy rainfall.

--

San Francisco media contact:
Francis Tsang
Chief Deputy Communications Director
Office of Mayor Edwin M. Lee
Phone: +415 554 6467
francis.tsang@sfgov.org

• Press Release [PDF 41.16 kB]
• Website: ResilientSF
• Making cities resilient: 'My city is getting ready' world disaster reduction campaign
• 1 million safe schools & hospitals initiative: make a pledge - save a life

Date:

20 Jun 2012

Sources:

• United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Secretariat (UNISDR)

Source :- http://www.unisdr.org/archive/27286

NDMA Organizes National Workshop of Secretaries of Disaster Management

Press Information Bureau
Government of India
Ministry of Home Affairs

18-April-2012 18:37 IST

NDMA Organizes National Workshop of Secretaries of Disaster Management

The National Workshop of Principal Secretaries/ Secretaries of Disaster Management Department of all States/ UTs on Best Practices in Disaster Management and Role of Science and Technology in Early Warning and Forecasting of Disasters was held in New Delhi today. Speaking on the occasion, Vice Chairman, NDMA Shri Shashidhar Reddy said that we should stop thinking in terms of incremental increases when it comes to upgrading our observational capabilities. We need to assess our final requirements, set a deadline and start working backward. Special efforts should be made to achieve this. We have excellent technical capability and I am sure that we can find the necessary funds.

Shri Reddy also emphasized upon the need for strengthening the State Remote Sensing Application Centres for providing better Decision Support System at the local levels. The National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) should look into the working of the State Centres in the context of local vulnerabilities and make recommendations to bring them on par with the better Centres like in Andhra Pradesh. Shri Reddy wanted them to suggest the kind of infrastructure, equipment and man-power to achieve this so that it can be taken up with the States, which will have to provide necessary funds for this purpose.

Capacity building is also one of the most important subjects. NDMA is in the process of revising the guidelines for National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) which is responsible for training and capacity building in disaster management with focus largely on Training of Trainers. He said the NDMA will seriously consider the suggestions made during this workshop about the setting up State Institute of Disaster Management by the States as done in some States like Uttar Pradesh.

Lauding the role of NDRF, he called upon the States to focus on raising State Disaster Response Force for providing rescue and relief locally and assured all assistance for training. He said that the Government of India has decided to make National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) a stand-alone dedicated force which is not to be deployed for any other duties like law & order and election duties, etc. Shri Reddy wanted the officials to impress upon their State Governments to expedite the process of formation of State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) wherever not been done so far and also suggested that SDRF should also remain a dedicated force without being given any other duties like the NDRF. Like the NDRF, SDRF can also be involved in community sensitization which will go a long way in preparing the communities to deal with disasters. Concerted efforts in this direction will have a tremendous impact on Community Based Disaster Preparedness over the next few years.

Source:- http://www.cdrn.org.in/show.detail.asp?id=23636

High-risk South Asia inks pact on disaster response

11 Nov 2011 16:56

Source: Alertnet // Krittivas Mukherjee

Taj Mohammad, 80, displaced by floods, sits with his siblings in a school building where they have taken refuge in the Badin district of Pakistan's Sindh province September 22, 2011. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

By Krittivas Mukherjee

ADDU CITY, Maldives, Nov 11 (AlertNet) - Eight South Asian countries agreed a pact on Friday to provide one another with quick assistance during natural disasters aimed at boosting response in a region that is among the world’s most disaster prone.

South Asia sits on a high-risk seismic zone and is home to one fifth of the world's population. It is susceptible to massive seasonal floods and storms and the dangers from climate change are probably the greatest in this poverty-blighted region.

Yet inertia, lack of funds and lax law enforcement have meant any progress in disaster preparedness has been slow. The Rapid Response to Natural Disasters agreement, signed off by the foreign ministers of the eight nations, seeks to change that by greater cooperation among each other.

"The agreement essentially aims to provide effective regional mechanisms for rapid response to natural disasters," said Vikram Doraiswami, an official from the Indian foreign ministry.

"The idea is to create the modalities by which countries in the region can provide each other assistance teams, how the assistance teams are to move, to build capacities to deal with post disaster relief delivery, and also to create contingency planning and post-disaster measures."

Six out of eight South Asian countries – India, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan – are located within the seismically active Himalayan-Hindukush belt.

The region witnesses around 100,000 minor quakes every year, and one of magnitude 8 or greater every 25 years. The last major earthquake in the region was in Pakistan in 2005, measuring 7.6 and killing more than 73,000 people.

CLIMATE CHANGE

South Asia is also prone to floods with millions displaced almost every year from seasonal rains and deluge. In Pakistan, the second consecutive year of flooding has killed 430 people and disrupted the lives of nine million.

But climate change is possibly the region’s greatest long-term security threat as rising temperatures and droughts dry out farmlands which are then inundated by intense floods and storms.

Sea levels are also rising unevenly in the Indian Ocean, placing millions at risk along low-lying coastlines in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives among countries in this region, scientists say.

For instance, the Maldives, a chain of low-lying sandy islands in the Indian Ocean famed for its diving and luxury resorts, fears being swamped by rising seas as the planet heats up.

The highest point of land here is two meters or about 6 feet above sea level. Future sea level is projected to rise within the range of 10 to 100 centimeters by the year 2100, which means the entire country could be submerged in the worst-case scenario, the World Bank says.

"By embracing climate change as an opportunity to do things differently, we can tackle emissions and earn a competitive advantage in the rapidly growing clean economy," Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed told a summit of the heads of state of the eight-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

The grouping has India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and the host country, an archipelago of nearly 1,200 mostly uninhabited atolls.

(Editing by Nita Bhalla)

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Source:- http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/high-risk-south-asia-inks-pact-on-disaster-response/