UNDRR News

The lamp in the classroom begins to sway. The desks start to shake. If you’ve never faced an earthquake, Turkey’s AFAD national disaster management authority can give you a taste.

Local governments, strategic thinking and the economic bottom line are driving forces of efforts to curb the impacts of natural and human-induced hazards.

Refugees and migrants must be included in efforts to reduce the risk of disasters, experts said this week at a European conference.

A European conference today set out the continent’s stance for the looming 2017 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, underscoring the need to rein in the impacts of natural and human-induced hazards.

It is a pleasure to be here at this meeting of the European Forum on Disaster Risk Reduction which has extended its reach beyond representatives of government to include many other representatives from civil society including parliamentarians, the private sector and NGOs.

People and their communities must be at the heart of efforts to reduce the impacts of natural and human-induced hazards, senior officials told Europe’s annual disaster risk summit today.

Turkey’s efforts to curb the threat of earthquakes and harness the power of youth to tackle hazards have been honoured with a pan-European award for innovative approaches to reducing disaster risk.

Hundreds of delegates are heading to Istanbul for Europe’s top disaster risk reduction forum, two months before a global conference takes aim at natural and human-induced hazards.

In the build-up to the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction which takes place in Cancun, Mexico, from May 22 to 26, the UNISDR Support Group is hearing presentations on progress in implementing the Sendai Framework including the Czech Republic.

Europe has launched a new drive to protect its heritage sites from the risk of disasters, an issue given added urgency by a string of earthquakes that wrecked age-old buildings in central Italy.