NDYS in Action, Newsletter 
Natural Disaster Youth Summit Monthly News     
                 http://ndys.jearn.jp/news/index.html  ndys@jearn.jp

Editor: Daniel Paz, 
Salta, Argentina

NDYS Youth Editors

Topics

Disaster Reduction and Climate Change

What is next?

    


           Some 375 million people a year will probably be affected by climate change-related disasters by 2015 - up from 250 million a year as at present - says a new report by the UK charity Oxfam, which points out that this could overwhelm the world’s current humanitarian aid capacity. 
    
       

The report launched on 21 April and entitled The Right to Survive: the humanitarian challenge for the 21st century provides compelling evidence of the need to rethink the way the world responds to, prepares for and prevents disasters. Based on data from 6,500 climate-related disasters since 1980, Oxfam predicts that the current number of people affected annually would rise by 133 million or 54 percent - not counting those affected by wars, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
             The world will need to increase its humanitarian aid spending from 2006 levels of US$14.2 billion to at least $25 billion a year, Oxfam said.

 

This happened in Zambia two months ago. Thousands of people got isolated and there were diseases and many looses.


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Editor: Daniel Paz, 
Salta, Argentina

Topics

Disaster Reduction and Climate Change

Afghanistan is in an emergency.

                 

Many people are suffering the bad effects of natural disasters. There were severe damages and many looses.

Flash floods, landslides and earthquakes in different parts of Afghanistan in the last 10 days or so have damaged thousands of houses, killed hundreds of livestock and made thousands homeless, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has said.

At least 15 people lost their lives and over a dozen of others were injured by floods in Herat, Badakhshan, Parwan, Faryab and Takhar provinces over the past two weeks, according to the Afghanistan National Disasters Management Authority (ANDMA).

Over 2,000 families were also affected by floods in Herat Province, (western Afghanistan); about 800 families were hit in Badghis Province (northwestern Afghanistan); and hundreds more were affected in several other provinces. Food, drinking water, shelter and healthcare are among the most urgent needs reported from the affected areas.

A major concern is the depletion of relief stocks across the country, and the government has called for pre-positioning of assistance items in expectation of more flooding in the near future, OCHA said in a report. Aid agencies are also concerned that more rainfall and rapidly melting snow will exacerbate the situation.
             Meanwhile, short-term humanitarian relief has been distributed to hundreds of families in the eastern province of Nangarhar, where hundreds of people were affected by two earthquakes - of 5.5 and 5.1 magnitudes on the Richter scale - on 16-17 April, OCHA said. Twenty-two people were killed, 59 were wounded and 650 families lost their homes as a result of the quake in Sherzad District, OCHA
reported. The loss of hundreds of livestock is an additional burden on local people who already face chronic food insecurity.
             Government officials said efforts were under way to help quake-affected people to rebuild their homes and resume a normal life.

         
                                                                                                                                    

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Editor: Daniel Paz, 
Salta, Argentina

Topics

Disaster Reduction and Climate Change

Heavy storms displaced thousands in Philippines. .

Tropical storm Dante, which unleashed heavy rains triggering flash floods and landslides, left at least 20 dead and displaced thousands, emergency relief officials said on 4 May.  The storm swirled over Mindoro Island south of Luzon before blowing out into the South China Sea on 2 May. But as it was leaving, a low pressure area gained strength and blew in from the Philippine Sea, hitting the eastern-most island of Catanduanes.
             The storm, with winds of up to 95km per hour, was last detected some 270km northeast of Virac in Catanduanes, the state weather bureau said. The storm dumped rains across large areas in the eastern Bicol region, causing floods and landslides in the provinces of Catanduanes, Sorsogon, Camarines Norte and Camarines Sur, the Office of Civil Defence (OCD) said.

 

The storm is only one case due to the fact that this country has more than 20 typhoons per year.

Of the 48,465 people displaced from 17 towns, more than 3,000 are now staying in evacuation centres, mostly schools, while the rest are staying with relatives, the OCD reported.
Several bridges were also washed away or damaged by the floods, cutting off many areas to traffic.
             The central government in Manila immediately ordered relief operations for the affected areas, with the health department tasked to "pre-position drugs and medicines" against common colds and flu to prevent an outbreak in packed evacuation centres, Defence Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said.
             He said police and military forces were also helping in the evacuation and search operations, while an airforce aircraft was conducting assessment flights over the affected areas. The
Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical, Astronomical Services Administration said the back-to-back storms came in the middle of the summer season and blamed the strange weather pattern on climate change. It said it had not yet officially declared summer as over, but warned of more unpredictable and extreme weather patterns. 

The Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) in its report, The Economics of Climate Change in Southeast Asia, released on 27 April, stated that the region was among the "most vulnerable" to climate change, because of its long coastlines and heavy reliance on agriculture, natural resources and forestry.

It noted that there had been an increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, including heat waves, droughts, floods and tropical cyclones in recent decades. Climate change, it said, was exacerbating water shortages, constraining food production while also increasing health risks. It warned that these four Southeast Asian countries could lose about 6.7 percent of their combined gross domestic product each year by 2100 to costs related to climate change if governments continued with their "business as usual" approach.

 

Comments:

What a sad episode lived people from Afghanistan, they cannot stop earthquakes but they should develop quick learning plans so citizens could take necessary precautions.

Philippines islands are in a difficult region which is constantly suffering storms and catastrophes. I wish they could be strong and get over this. They were developing some strategic pans, hope they can be helpful now.

Now we will start again the series of disasters which occurred last year, but I am afraid this time things will get worst…Hope not.

By Sergio Daniel Paz;  Salta-Argentina

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