UNDRR News

One year ago, the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami took 13,007 lives in Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima -- the country's three most affected prefectures; 54 percent of those fatalities were women and girls.

The UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, today paid tribute to the resilience of the Japanese people as they prepare to mark the first anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.

The UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, marked International Women's Day today with a call to governments in the world's most disaster-prone countries to "empower girls and women through education and access to resources as part of building resilience to disasters at community level.

Almost one year ago Minami Sanriku was one of many coastal towns in the Northern Miyagi Prefecture that was devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.

Few people outside Italy are aware that six seismologists and a government official are on trial in the small city of L'Aquila. But the story has implications for scientists, engineers, administrators, and legal systems far beyond Italy's borders.

The UN Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, and HE Yoichi Otabe, the Japanese Ambassador to the International Organizations in Geneva, announced today the start of consultations on a new international blueprint for reducing disaster losses in advance of the World Conference on Disaster Reduction which the Japanese government is proposing to host in 2015.

UNICEF'S flagship report, The State of the World's Children 2012: Children In An Urban World, urges governments to put children at the heart of urban planning and finds that for millions of children urban poverty is intensified by exposure to cyclones, floods, mudslides, earthquakes and other disasters.

Disaster risk reduction was at the top of the agenda today for over 2,000 mayors and municipal leaders in Vera Cruz, Mexico, attending the Conferencia Anual de Municipios 2012 at which the keynote address was delivered by UNISDR Chief, Margareta Wahlström.

The March to May rainfall season in the Greater Horn of Africa is likely to result in "near normal to below normal rainfall" over much of the region, according to a statement today from the 30th Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forum (GHACOF30).

Morocco is taking steps to join 78 other nations whose governments have created National Platforms for Disaster Risk Reduction to support policies for building resilience to disasters.