..Press Release................................ UNESCAP News Services

Date 21 January 2005
Press Release No: G/01/2005

LETS WORK TOGETHER TO REDUCE LOSSES FROM NATURAL DISASTERS: UNESCAP

Bangkok (United Nations Information Services) -- Executive Secretary of UNESCAP and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Mr. Kim Hak-Su addressed the World Conference on Disaster Reduction with a keynote speech focusing on working together to reduce losses from natural disasters in the Asia Pacific Region.

“The December-2004 tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean is a strong testimony of the urgent need to address the risk of common threats caused by natural hazards for sustainable development in the Asia-Pacific region,” he said.

“The number of death caused natural disasters in the region accounted for about 85 per cent of that of the World during the last century,” he said.

The conference in Kobe, Japan is being held 18-22 January and is being attended by UN and government representatives.

“Recent surveys, including those conducted by UNESCAP, showed that the most common natural disasters in the Asian and Pacific region included floods, cyclones, earthquakes, droughts, storm surges, tsunamis and haze. Economic loss of these disasters during the period from 1990 to 2003 exceeded US$380 billion, which was caused mostly by cyclones/floods and earthquakes accounting for 57 and 37 per cent respectively.”

“The most important challenge for the region is therefore to minimize the loss of lives and damage,” he said.

Mr. Kim said that UNESCAP is looking forward to initiatives to set up targets for minimizing loss of lives or damage to guide regional efforts on disaster risk management.

For further information on the Conference on Disaster Reduction go to:
http://www.unisdr.org/wcdr/

or contact:

UN Information Services Bangkok
Tel: +(66-2) 288-1861-69, Fax: +(66-2) 288-1052
E-mail: unisbkk.unescap@un.org

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