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Asia-Pacific remains the region with the largest proportion of natural disasters in the world. The devastating earthquake in April 2015 in Nepal; the typhoons: Pam in April 2015 in Vanuatu, Haiyan in 2013, and Pablo in 2012 in the Philippines; the 2011 floods in Thailand; and the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan are some of the major disasters from the past few years. But in the period 2005-2014, the region had 1,625 reported disaster events—that is over 40 per cent of the global total.

During this period, approximately 500,000 people lost their lives, around 1.4 billion people were affected, and there was USD 523 billion worth of economic damage—accounting for 60 per cent of global deaths, 80 per cent of those affected, and 45 per cent of economic losses.2

In 2014 alone, although there were no extreme catastrophes, the economic loss due to natural disasters was estimated at USD 60 billion, with around 80 million people affected by natural disasters, and over 6,000 fatalities.3

According to the World Economic and Social Survey,5 the number of natural disasters increased five-fold between 1979 and 2010. Asia-Pacific’s vulnerability to disasters is likely to increase with its large population size (4.4 billion) and high population densities in disaster prone areas. Around 60 per cent of Asia-Pacific city dwellers, 742 million people, are now at ‘extreme’ to ‘high’ disaster risk. By 2030, it is estimated that the number at ‘high’ or ‘extreme’ risk could reach 980 million.6 Given the significance of Asia and the Pacific in the world’s economy, major disasters in this region tend to have adverse global impacts.
Contact
Information and Communications Technology and Disaster Risk Reduction Division [email protected]