UNDRR News

It’s 6:00 am one September day when a powerful undersea earthquake rocks the Makran Trench along the coast of Pakistan and Iran. Minutes later, the tsunami warning centres in India and Indonesia issue simultaneous alerts, followed rapidly by their counterpart in Australia, and authorities across the Indian Ocean swing into action. It's all a test, and a critical component of the region's disaster preparedness.

With just ten days to go to the World Humanitarian Summit, new figures on internally displaced people show that natural hazards including severe weather events are displacing millions of people every year.

World Tsunami Awareness Day makes its debut on the international calendar this November, and disaster experts from around the Indian Ocean have been given an early opportunity to step up and get involved.

Tsunami experts from across the Indian Ocean have gathered in Australia this week to work on ways to improve their ability to ward off a repeat of the tragedy that struck the region in 2004.

The devastating impact of the El Niño phenomenon on more than 60 million people was the focus of a Special meeting of the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) at UN HQ in New York on Friday.

The President of Mexico, Mr. Enrique Peña Nieto, today outlined his ambition for the country to become a role model in disaster risk reduction as it marks 30 years of the National System for Civil Protection.

Mexico, as host country, will encourage the 2017 Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction to focus on reducing economic losses from disasters, it emerged today.

The Kenyan city of Kisumu is pioneering local-level implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction in Africa, underlining its determination to find sustainable solutions to the challenge of rapid urbanization and a changing climate.

One of the world’s most ambitious low-cost housing reconstruction programmes ever to be undertaken in a seismic zone is due to get underway this week following the first anniversary of the April 25 Nepal earthquake.

The world needs to do more to tackle the drawn-out impacts of the strongest El Nino in five decades, senior aid and development officials say, underscoring the call for preparedness and resilience in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.