UNDRR News

When college sophomore Sam Johnson started a Facebook page following the September 2010 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, to rally his peers to help affected communities, he never imagined that his idea would eventually mobilize an 'army' of young people across the country to take up similar efforts.

The Head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), Margareta Wahlström, today extended condolences to the families of those who have lost loved ones in the collapse of an eight-storey building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and reiterated that Dhaka is also in a high risk earthquake zone.

There are just four weeks to go before 3,000 people arrive in Geneva to attend the largest-ever event staged by the United Nations to discuss how to stem the rising tide of economic losses from disaster events around the world which now regularly surpass $100 billion each year.

Outer space isn't a place organizations usually think of when looking to build resilience and reduce disaster risks. Yet, this is exactly where participants' minds were when experts were invited by UNISDR and the UN's Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) to discuss the incorporation of space technology into the post-2015 disaster risk reduction framework.

Five years after Cyclone Nargis claimed over 138,000 lives, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction is joining forces with the media in Myanmar to highlight the lessons learned as the anniversary of the tragedy comes around.

Early last Saturday morning, some 1,000 residents of the city of Hoboken in New Jersey, birthplace of the legendary crooner Frank Sinatra, came out in full force and high spirits to run a special race in aid of Hurricane Sandy disaster relief in both Hoboken and its sister city Port Maria in Jamaica.

Five years after energy black outs and major floods exposed serious weaknesses in the city’s infrastructure and services, the Spanish city of Barcelona was recognized today by the United Nations as a role model for urban resilience in recognition of its efforts to reduce the vulnerability of critical infrastructure and services.

The UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, today welcomed the city of Hoboken, New Jersey, into UNISDR's Making Cities Resilient Campaign in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Hoboken brings to four the number of US cities who have joined UNISDR's global campaign which has 1,400 adherents.

UNISDR Chief Margareta Wahlström today participated in the launch of a National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Bosnia and Herzegovina where over 400,000 people have been affected by floods and drought since the beginning of the century, taking a major toll on the country's economic development.

Italy has moved to empower its leaders to make better informed decisions to reduce the country's overall disaster risk.