Category: Berita Internasional

Washington:  Analysing tweets or other social media posts during a disaster may help quickly identify which of the impacted areas are in urgent need of assistance, a new study has found.

By analysing the September 2013 floods in Colorado in US, researchers showed that a combination of Twitter and Flickr data, and remote sensing could help identify flooded areas.

“We have seen here that there is potential to use social media data from community members to help identify hotspots in need of aid, especially when it is paired with remote sensing imagery of the area,” said Guido Cervone, associate professor at the Pennsylvania State University’s Institute for CyberScience.

After a disaster, response teams typically prioritise rescue and aid efforts with help from imagery and other data that show what regions are affected the most.

Responders commonly use satellite imagery, but this on its own has drawbacks.

“Publicly available satellite imagery for a location isn’t always available in a timely manner – sometimes it can take days before it becomes available,” said Elena Sava, graduate student at Penn State.

“Our research focused on identifying data in non- traditional data streams that can prove mission critical for specific areas where there might be damage,” Ms Sava said. The September 2013 Colorado flooding was an unprecedented event. Because the flooding occurred in an urban setting, the researchers were able to access more than 150,000 tweets from people affected by the flooding.

Using a tool called CarbonScanner, they identified clusters of posts suggesting possible locations of damage.

Then, they analysed more than 22,000 photos from the area obtained through satellites, Twitter, Flickr, the Civil Air Patrol, unmanned aerial vehicles and other sources.

They developed a machine-learning algorithm to automatically analyse several thousand images, which allowed them to quickly identify individual pixels of images that contained water.

“We looked at a set of images and manually selected areas that we knew had water and areas that had no water,” said Ms Sava.

“Then, we fed that information to the algorithm we had developed, and it allowed the computer to ‘learn’ what was and wasn’t water,” she said.

Twitter data could help identify hotspots for which satellite imagery should be acquired, researchers said. The team also found that satellite imagery on its own was not always reliable, and that social media can be fused with remote sensing imagery to help identify the extent of the flooding.

The study was published in the International Journal of Remote Sensing.

source: ndtv.com

MANILA, Philippines – The year 2015 proved to be a historic one for countries prone to natural disasters like the Philippines.

Three international agreements related to disasters were crafted this year, a development that Philippine officials believe reflected the growing awareness about the need for more resilient communities and economies.

The Sendai Framework, which recognizes the role of the state and other stakeholders in reducing disaster risk, was adopted last March. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Disaster Risk Reduction Framework, meanwhile, was approved in Iloilo City in September.

A long-awaited climate agreement was also adopted in Paris in December, but not without protests by some groups who believe that poor countries were shortchanged during the negotiations.

“The year 2015 was a year of both challenges and opportunities,” National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) executive director Alexander Pama told The STAR in an interview.

“It was a year of challenges as we have seen and experienced the effects of strong typhoons… It was also a year of opportunity because respected groups like the UNISDR (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction) and other counties said we are doing what is right,” he added.

Pama claimed that the Philippines, a country visited by about 20 typhoons every year, played a key role in the adoption of all three agreements.

With regard to the Sendai Framework, a 15-year non-binding agreement that aims to substantially reduce disaster-related deaths and losses, Pama said the Philippines pushed for gender sensitivity and the participation of migrant workers.

He said the country also lobbied for the inclusion of pre-disaster risk assessment, a concept now embodied in paragraph 23 of the agreement.

“We contributed important aspects to the Sendai Framework, particularly in pre-disaster risk assessment and understanding disasters,” Pama said.

“It was a very significant milestone in terms of disaster risk reduction and we played a very significant role in the passage of that framework,” he said.

The framework has seven global targets: to substantially reduce global disaster mortality, reduce the number of affected people globally, reduce direct disaster economic loss, substantially reduce disaster damage to critical infrastructure and disruption of basic services, substantially enhance international cooperation to developing countries through adequate and sustainable support, substantially increase the availability of and access to early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessments all by 2030, and substantially increase the number of countries with national and local disaster risk reduction strategies by 2020. 

To achieve these goals, countries need to undertake four priorities of action, namely to understand disaster risk, strengthen disaster risk governance, invest in disaster risk reduction and enhance disaster preparedness for effective response and rehabilitation.

Non-binding

The APEC Disaster Risk Reduction Framework, meanwhile, was described by Pama as a document “practically authored by the Philippines.”

“For the first time in the history of APEC, it now has disaster risk reduction framework,” Pama said.

The document, however, is also non-binding and there have been doubts as to whether it could really promote international cooperation on disaster response. Pama, however, believes that the adoption of the framework is in itself an important development.

“It may not be binding but we now have a basis and framework for the conduct of activities related to emergency preparedness,” he said.

Pama stressed that the “new normal” – a term used to describe unpredictable and increasing frequency and magnitude of disasters – requires stronger cooperation among APEC member-economies.

The framework, the first document on disaster preparedness adopted by APEC since the economic bloc was formed in 1989, emphasizes the importance of prevention and mitigation, preparedness and response, recovery and rehabilitation.

It also acknowledges the role of the private sector in promoting disaster resilience and sustainable development. APEC member-economies have also agreed to craft an action plan to implement, monitor and evaluate activities related to the framework. 

Controversial climate deal

The 21st Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) drew mixed reviews. While delegates were able to prove wrong the doomsayers who predicted that nothing significant would come out of the event, some critics are not satisfied with the outcome, which has been criticized as vague on key issues including climate finance.

Under the agreement, countries will work to hold global warming “well below” two degrees Celsius and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The Philippines and other vulnerable countries pushed for the lowering of the UNFCCC’s temperature goal to 1.5 degrees Celsius from 2 degrees, saying this would ensure their survival. 

Parties will also stop the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, which has been linked to global warming. The agreement, however, is silent on countries that failed to meet their emission reduction goals.

Some groups also claimed that the agreement did not have enough provisions on climate financing for countries vulnerable to climate change.

Rodne Galicha, Philippine manager of The Climate Reality Project, said while the agreement may become “a spark of hope to save the planet,” it did not have much to say about loss and damage mechanisms.

“Ambitious it may seem, there is still a great imbalance – no clear finance mechanism for loss and damage. This agreement is useless if countries are unable to ratify and implement – the challenge lies on governments and their people,” Galicha said in a recent statement. 

“Historical responsibility, liability and compensation are not addressed, hence, most vulnerable countries which experienced massive losses and damage may be at the crossroads,” he added.

International humanitarian group Oxfam, meanwhile, said the deal is “a landmark step” but “has not done enough to ensure that a three degrees Celsius world will be avoided or secure sufficient climate funding for vulnerable communities.

“The Paris climate deal has brought the world’s powers together but has shortchanged the poorest and most vulnerable people as they struggle with the burgeoning reality of rising sea-levels, floods and drought Oxfam warned today,” Oxfam said in a statement.

The group said the ambitious speeches from world leaders opening the summit were not sustained until the end of the talks.

“This deal offers a frayed lifeline to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. Only the vague promise of a new future climate funding target has been made, while the deal does not force countries to cut emissions fast enough to forestall a climate change catastrophe. This will only ramp up adaptation costs further in the future,” Oxfam executive director Helen Szoke said.

“Governments across the world have now come together in the global fight against climate change but must play catch up. We will be holding them to account with the millions of people who marched in cities all around the world so that dangerous warming is averted and the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities get the support that they need,” she added.

Oxfam said there is nothing in the agreement that guarantees that current commitments of countries will improve before they come into force, making it hard to reach the two degrees Celsius goal and almost impossible to avoid warming of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius that developing countries, including the Philippines, believe is necessary for their survival. 

Pama, however, believes that all the climate concerns cannot be resolved by a single agreement.

“We cannot expect to come up with a perfect document in a span of two weeks. The fact that there is already a document, that there is an agreement in principle in most of the areas, that is already a major movement,” Pama said.

“It is understandable that some countries will push for their respective interests. Some will say it’s for the survival of some countries, others will say hey, if you ban the use of oil, it will also affect our survival,” he added.

“I won’t complain about the agreement but it could have been better.”

Impact of typhoons

While the government claimed to have several achievements in disaster management, the number of casualties and amount of damage caused by typhoons that hit the country this year remained high.

A total of 116 people died while 35 others went missing in 13 typhoons that visited the country this year. The typhoons also left 133 persons injured, data from the NDRRMC showed.

The typhoons also affected 4.2 million persons or more than 976,000 families and damaged P18.24 billion worth of properties.

source: http://www.philstar.com

The Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction was agreed on in March and points the way toward resilience

United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon listed this month’s Paris climate agreement as a major achievement of the organization’s 70th year, a “pivotal year” in his words Dec. 16, as he also cited the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction, which was agreed on in March and points the way toward resilience.

“The Paris Agreement on climate change is a sign of hope in troubled times. It is a triumph for multilateralism that shows the United Nations delivering results the world desperately needs,” Ban said during his year-end news conference. “The Paris Agreement surpassed expectations. World leaders recognized that we could and must do better than settling for the lowest common denominator. So they reached higher. The Paris Agreement gives us ‘Plan A’ for the planet – A for ambition.” He said after nine years of pushing hard for the agreement, he will “press world leaders to translate promise into practice” by implementing it.

The Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction and other agreements reached during 2015 “have set the stage for a future that leaves no one behind,” Ban said, as he also cited “epic flows” of refugees and said during 2016, “the world needs to aim for a new global compact on human mobility.”

The Sendai Framework resulted from stakeholder consultations begun in March 2012 and inter-governmental negotiations held from July 2014 to March 2015. It sets seven global targets:

• Substantially reduce global disaster mortality by 2030, aiming to lower the average per 100,000 global mortality rate in the decade 2020-2030 from that of 2005-2015.
• Substantially reduce the number of affected people globally by 2030.
• Reduce direct disaster economic loss in relation to global gross domestic product by 2030.
• Substantially reduce disaster damage to critical infrastructure and disruption of basic services, including health and educational facilities, and increasing their resilience by 2030.
• Substantially increase the number of countries with national and local disaster risk reduction strategies by 2020.
• Substantially enhance international cooperation to developing countries through adequate, sustainable support to complement their national actions for implementation of the framework by 2030.
• Substantially increase the availability of and access to multi-hazard early warning systems and disaster risk information/assessments by 2030.

“With resilience, our goal is for communities to no longer rely exclusively on organizations to help them.”

With these words,  Carlyne McKenzie, Resilience Project Coordinator for the Bahamas Red Cross, explained the purpose of the 9^th Caribbean Conference on Comprehensive Disaster Management, hosted by the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) jointly with Bahamas’ National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) between the 30^th of November and the 4^th of December of 2015, in Bahamas.

This conference gathered participants from several organizations and agencies, both national and regional, for five days of presentations, discussions and exchanges regarding the state of disaster management and community resilience in the Caribbean .

Delegates from organizations such as EU Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the University of West Indies (UWI), the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CiMH), the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Red Cross, the Grenada Red Cross, the Suriname Red Cross, the Bahamas Red Cross, the American Red Cross, the Canadian Red Cross and The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), among others, convened in plenary sessions and work groups to address issues such as climate change, sustainable development, monitoring and evaluation practices, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), strengthening preparedness and response, communications technologies,  knowledge management and community resilience.

“We gained knowledge with our participation in this conference, it feels really good.  We want to broaden our horizons when it comes to disaster preparedness in ways that we can modify with what we’re doing here in the Bahamas.  To expand our experience with the experience of other countries, of other organizations, it gives us added insight into how to be better prepared” stated Daryll Armbrister. Social Media Officer for the Bahamas Red Cross.

One event that generated a considerable amount of activity among the conference delegates was the Knowledge Marketplace, a new feature to the CDM Conference where current disaster risk management initiatives and tools were “sold” to delegates through quick five minute presentations.  The delegates were given paper money, and would then express their interest in the tool by “buying” it, with the three most bought tools receiving awards later in the day.

IFRC/CDEMA, with the support of the Suriname Red Cross, presented a Strategic Targeting Methodology (STM), a tool designed for organizations to improve their process in selecting communities for their programs and projects through carefully designed criteria that reduce external influences and focus on the communities by their needs and vulnerabilities.  The STM was the most “bought” tool of the conference, winning the CDM Conference prize.

The second most bought tool belonged to the American Red Cross, in support of the Bahamas Red Cross through their Resilience in The Americas (RITA) program, with their multi-hazard smartphone app, which features information on natural hazards, basic first aid procedures, emergency messaging including location, as well as emergency lights and sound.  You can find more information on this app by visiting: http://www.redcross.org/mobile-apps/emergency-app

Another session where the Red Cross movement was well represented was the Youth Conference, where a panel comprised of a 16-18 year old representative from each CDEMA participating state discussed CDM in relation to Caribbean youth.  The representative from Dominica, Phael Lander, is a youth volunteer for the Red Cross of Dominica, who witnessed the value of Psychosocial Support (PSP) in disaster recovery when his home country was gravely affected by Tropical Storm Erika in August 2015.

“The youth of the Caribbean need education, training and resources.  If these three things are provided to us, I foresee the world to be a much safer place.”

Lander, along with his fellow youth panellists, engaged in lively exchanges on community action, youth involvement in risk management, the possibility of including comprehensive disaster management in high school curriculum throughout the Caribbean, careers in Disaster Risk Management and the use of multimedia to engage younger generations in preparedness and risk management.

– See more at: http://www.ifrc.org/en/news-and-media/news-stories/americas/bahamas/the-future-of-disaster-management-in-the-caribbean/#sthash.BnJV6mQm.dpuf

Completely unprepared for disasters: the hospitals in Chennai — private as well as government — were particularly vulnerable, improvising solutions as the situation developed. At least 13 primary health centres in Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts were affected. The Tambaram Taluk Hospital in Chromepet ran outpatient (OPD) services from a wedding hall for two days after evacuating many of its inpatients to other hospitals.

Water had entered the ground floor of the ESIC Hospital in K.K. Nagar too.

Patients were shifted to a higher floor. But the worst affected was MIOT International, where 18 patients on ventilator support died on December 2 and 3, as per the Health Secretary’s press release. Within days, police registered a case under section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cr.PC) against the hospital. The post-mortem reports are likely to be submitted this week.

The floods in Chennai bring to the fore the need for stricter implementation of hospital safety standards. The last time this topic was debated was after what has come to be known as the ‘AMRI fire tragedy.’ In December 2011, around 3 a.m. a fire broke out in the basement of the seven-storey hospital in Kolkata — Advanced Medical Research Institute (AMRI) Hospitals. By morning, 90 patients had choked to death.

A few months before the AMRI tragedy, Kavita Narayan, a disaster management expert trained by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), along with some of the best minds in the country — structural engineers, doctors and specialists in hospital design — had written a policy document that laid out in great detail what was expected of medical and non-medical staff in case of any disaster.

Every single one of the 111 pages of Hospital Standards Safety Committee had answers that could have saved lives. The document had exhaustive instructions to doctors, nurses, and management about how to plan and evacuate in case of emergency. It even laid out how and where to store which equipment; how to avoid flooding in critical units; the norms of fire safety, etc. The document has been gathering dust since December 2013, when it was submitted to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

In an ideal situation, the response begins soon as water levels start rising or, as in the case of AMRI, the fire was spreading.

In Tamil Nadu, the private sector currently caters to roughly 60 per cent outpatient services, and 40 per cent of in-patient services, as per the State Health Department. The Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010 — enacted by the Central Government — which prescribes minimum standards to be followed has not been notified by Tamil Nadu because they already have a State Act. As of now, the Central Act is notified only in four States — Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Sikkim and all union territories except Delhi.

While the State has an Act in place to regulate private players, expecting any norms and standardised care from private hospitals is like building castles in the air.

Here is why: for nearly 18 years, the Tamil Nadu government has been sitting on The Tamil Nadu Private Clinical Establishments (Regulation) Act, 1997. The Act came into force in April 1997, the rules for it are yet to be notified.

The State government has three options: either adopt the Central Act, or enact its own or, lastly, make changes on the existing Act governing clinical establishments. Tamil Nadu has done none of this.

“We actually got the idea for the Central Act from Tamil Nadu. We were hoping it will pressure the State government to implement the existing law, if the Centre also passes it. Tamil Nadu passed the Act in the Assembly. Since then, it has been in animated suspension. We kept pushing for it but the lobby of private hospital owners is so strong that no progress has been made for nearly two decades.” said Sunil Nandraj, who was an adviser to the government as the Clinical Establishments Act was drafted.

Health Secretary J. Radhakrishnan said: “We are in the final stages of framing the rules for the Act. Several meetings have already been held with all stakeholders, and the rules will be notified shortly.”

With even minimal standards lacking, enforcing disaster preparedness is a far cry in India, Ms. Narayan said. “The draft hospital safety document has very specific rules — to the extent of specifying exact locations of storing emergency equipments. We do not follow any of this because India currently does not have a policy for this,” she said.

As the weather returns to normalcy in Chennai, the citizens should ask the question whether medical culture as well as governance in this country is willing to accept the virtues of regulation in the interest of patient safety.

Otherwise, this is the grim reality of Indian hospitals: they harm as much as they heal.

source: thehindu.com

2015 has been a formative year for climate change and disaster management efforts. The Sendai Framework for disaster risk reduction was adopted this year, and it culminates with COP 21 – which aims to attain a global climate agreement.

The UN World Conference on Disaster risk reduction took place in Sendai, Japan last March, which brought together government and civil society representatives from around the globe to discuss ways to achieve sustainable development by managing disaster and climate risks better. And UNFCCC’s 21st International Conference of Parties (COP 21) is currently taking place in Paris with the aim of reaching a binding agreement for reducing emissions and keeping global temperature rise below 2 degrees.

It was only appropriate that these two events took place on the same year, as climate change and disaster risk are indispensably linked. A recent UNISDR study shows 90% of natural disasters are weather related. Climate change is exacerbating disasters – as evidenced by more frequent and intense climatic events such as floods, cyclones and droughts in vulnerable regions.

“It is important to bring the disaster agenda with the climate change agenda going forward,” said Dame Julia Slingo, chief scientist at the UK Met Office. “Forewarned is better than forearmed,” she said, adding that while prediction may not be possible, preparedness such as early warning can go a long way in improving resilience to disasters. She highlighted the importance of access to better information in the context of increasing frequency and intensity of disasters due to climate change.

“Climate change is an issue that is very much a part and parcel of the Sendai Framework,” said Anote Tong, President of Kiribati, which is facing unprecedented floods, inundation and salt water intrusion. The islands on average are about 2 meters above sea level and many of the communities have to change their way of life to adapt. “Our experience this year with cyclone Pam represented that the most devastating risks would be from the changing weather patterns,” he said. “We don’t want to be duplicating the processes at Sendai and Paris, we want to make them as effective as possible”.

To be effective in reducing the risks from disasters and climate change, inter-ministerial cooperation is required, according to Manuel Pulgar Vidal, Minister of Environment of Peru and the president of COP 20. “We are used to organize our public agencies by sectors in an isolated way,” he says, “but we need a cross cutting way of governance to strengthen our government’s ability to reduce disaster and climate change risks.”

Abdullah Majeed, Minister of Environment and Energy, Maldives, stressed the importance of public funding for strong preparedness. “Disasters and climate change need to become priorities not just for disaster management and environment ministries, but for finance ministries as well,” he says.

Given the scale of climate change impacts and disasters, efforts from the government or development organizations alone are no longer adequate. “National efforts need to be augmented by regional cooperation,” says Majeed. His nation Maldives is in the Asia Pacific which is the most disaster prone region of the world and has faced over USD 200 billion worth of damage from disasters. The IPCC in its last two assessment reports have said that the poorest of the poor will be worst affected by climate change. Most small island developing states such as Maldives lack the capacity to address the disasters they are facing and are in dire need of international assistance and regional support.

“We agreed on 7 global targets [for disaster risk reduction] to be achieved by 2030 to reduce the impact of disasters. One of the targets is ready to be achieved by 2020,” said Margarita Wahlstrom, Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) for disaster risk reduction, referring to countries having national and local plans for disaster risk reduction.

With the extensive loss of lives and property brought about natural disasters around the world, Sendai Framework’s objectives are crucial to improving disaster preparedness and thus reducing risks in the short term. However, to reduce vulnerability and reach long term sustainable solutions, there needs to be increased focus on integrating disaster preparedness efforts with climate change mitigation and adaptation interventions. Sendai framework has been the first step towards doing so. And a strong agreement in Paris can give the finishing touch.

source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com

The deadly earthquake that struck northern Pakistan last month exposed the nation’s lack of preparedness and weak resilience to respond, cope with, and recover from natural disasters. It is ironic that a country that has been struck by at least 40 earthquakes since 1970 has still not been able to strengthen resilience to reduce disaster risk. The majority of our people lack awareness regarding what to do and what not to do in an event of a natural disaster. The public at large has still not been imparted something as basic as initial rescue training to reduce the risks posed by natural disasters. Hence, the risk posed by such events always increases due to the lack of effective response. This is true, not just for Pakistan, but also for other developing countries. For instance, at least 12 minor girls were killed and 35 others injured after a stampede broke out in their school in the Afghan province of Takhar following the earthquake. Similarly in Pakistan, schoolchildren, along with their teachers, rushed out of school buildings after the quake, triggering a stampede.

I have personally witnessed the unpreparedness and confusion of people when reacting to the deadly earthquake that struck Balochistan in 1997. People seemed to have completely lost their senses, with some jumping out of the first and second floors of residential buildings and suffering serious injuries. Some even resorted to firing into the air as the quake occurred around midnight and they assumed that their houses had been attacked. This gunfire created even more panic and fear.

Pakistan still lacks strategic direction and adequate infrastructure to handle disasters. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa now faces a landslide that has cut off around 50 villages in Havelian. This is being blamed on the lack of preemptive measures taken in the aftermath of the October 26 earthquake. People of these villages will now face the biting cold weather as they wait for rescue and relief. The disaster management apparatus in Pakistan clearly lacks the capacity to give a strategic, rapid and preemptive response, transforming natural events into a human and economic disaster for the country.

Pakistan is located in a zone of heightened seismic hazards. Despite facing repeated natural disasters, the authorities have failed to shake out of their slumber to develop national strategies for risk reduction. The country’s disaster-related policies seem to have so far been focused on emergency response, which usually comes from the Pakistan Army. What comes from the political leadership in a post-disaster situation are merely statements and announcements of financial assistance for the affected people.

Natural disasters are unavoidable, but the damage they cause can be managed through effective policies. Such events shouldn’t have to result in huge human and economic losses, which only occur because they are not strategically, effectively and efficiently managed. There is a need to build a national legal and regulatory framework that could bring together the economic planning departments, provincial and local governments and civil society organisations. These should be tasked with first assessing inter-sectoral priorities, allocating separate budgets for disaster risk reduction and then formulating and implementing strategies for the same. The authorities should learn from the aftermath of the October 26 earthquake if they have not already learnt from the several natural disasters that the country has witnessed in the recent past. Undertaking adequate preparedness measures, development of efficient systems for disaster risk assessment, as well as information management and early warning systems are the need of the hour to save lives and livelihoods.

VISAKHAPATNAM : Local bodies should be given importance in implementing the disaster risk reduction (DRR) system as they play a crucial role in all phases of disaster management, suggested the Visakhapatnam Declaration released at the concluding ceremony of the second World Congress on Disaster Management (WCDM) here Sunday. The World Congress emphasised the need for incorporating a new culture of prevention and preparedness as an essential component of all development planning and implementation besides involving local bodies in preparedness planning, response, recovery and factoring in DRR in development processes and outcomes.

Deputy CM N Chinarajappa Elaborating on the Visakhapatnam Declaration, Bihar Disaster Management Authority vice-chairman AK Sinha said that the WCDM had resolved to achieve the recent Sendai Framework for DRR and integration into sustainable development goals and climate change adaptation, by setting up a full time dedicated and independent body of experts on the lines of State Disaster Management Authority at provincial level. It would also invest in strengthening and operationalising district-level and regional units. The WCDM felt that devolution approach to the last level of governance and communities (both in rural and urban areas), is the key to an innovation in disaster management. At the four-day congress, about 1,000 disaster management professionals, practitioners, researchers, academicians, defence service personnel, government authorities, NGOs, multi-lateral organisations, media, representatives from the private sector as well as children communities committed to disaster managementm came together and deliberated on relevant issues. The conference resolved to innovate and create an accountable action plan and identify the risk factors to address their root causes. “Natural Resources and Environmental concerns are a critical concern which impact the life-line of communities,” Sinha said.

Pointing out that the global processes ‘towards building resilience of communities and nations’ through Yokohama Strategy, IDNDR, HFA and recently, Sendai Framework for DRR (2015-30), the WCDM strongly felt that the same had not percolated to the sub-national, especially local levels. The World Congress stressed the need for sustaining a deep focus on vulnerable women, youth, children, disabled, elderly and strengthening inclusive approaches.

“We hope to see the new capital of Amaravathi becoming a model for the rest of the world as a Smart Resilient City which includes the concerns of all stakeholders. The 21st century city must retain its ancient cultural heritage and history, but also become disaster/climate resilient,” Sinha added.

More than 100,000 fires in Indonesia have engulfed the country in a hazardous smoke, leading to an environmental and public health crisis.

A wooden boat cruises in front of the skyline of the city of Doha, Qatar, 15 January 2015. The men’s Handball World Championship takes place in Qatar from 15 January to 01 February. Photo by: Axel Heimken/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

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More than 100,000 land and forest fires in Indonesia have engulfed the country in a hazardous smoke, leading to an environmental and public health crisis that has affected every element of society in this sprawling Southeast Asian nation. Tens of thousands of people have been declared victims of respiratory conditions because of the smoke and the fires alone are now emitting as much carbon dioxide on any given day as emitted by the entire U.S. economy in the same time period.

Widespread fires are nothing new in Indonesia, where farmers regularly burn forests and peatlands to make way to produce palm oil, a key ingredient in a variety of food and consumer products, but experts say the scale of the damage is worse than it has been in a decade. This week Indonesian President Joko Widodo cut short his trip to the U.S. to deal with the problem.

“It’s not just an environmental issue. It’s a public health disaster as well,” said Nigel Sizer, global director of the World Resources Institute’s forests program. “When air is this poor quality, economic activity almost grinds to a halt.”

Read More: Watch Eerie Drone Footage of Indonesia’s Vast Forest Fires A top concern for Widodo upon his return will be protecting the health of his country’s 250 million people. Air quality conditions have worsened dramatically in recent days with air pollution far exceeding levels deemed healthy by public health officials. The particulate matter concentration (PM10)—which measures small solid or liquid pollutant particles in the atmosphere—was 1,357 micrograms per cubic meter air in the region of Palangkaraya, one of the worst hit areas, according to the Jarkata Post. There is no perfectly safe level of PM10 exposure, but the U.S. Environmental Protect Agency says particulate pollution shouldn’t exceed 150 micrograms per cubic meter for 24 hours in any given community. More than half a million people have been treated for respiratory illness in six affected provinces, according to numbers from the country’s national disaster agency. The fires are a regular man-made disaster that have been exacerbated by climate and weather patterns. Landowners burn forests in the country at this time of the year to make room for new palm oil plantations. “This is an amazing crime against humanity,” said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesperson for Indonesia’s national disaster agency. The smoke from the fires is always bad, and this year’s El Niño has worsened the problem. The climate pattern brings torrential rain to some parts of the United States but causes drought in Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Once land starts to burn the fires are hard to stop because of the abundance of peat, decayed organic matter that burns easily and almost indefinitely. “Where you have a lot of peat, you get a lot more haze and these absolutely extraordinarily levels of air pollution,” said Sizer.

The fires are also contributing to climate change at a massive scale—by one estimate enough to account for 3% of global emissions since this year’s fires began, according to a Scientific American report. Tearing down healthy forests—which absorb carbon dioxide—also destroys a vital carbon sink that can otherwise slow global waring.

In advance of his Washington visit this past weekend, Widodo announced a commitment to stop issuing permits for the development of palm oil plantations, part of a broader effort to reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. More than half of the country’s emissions come from deforestation and land destruction. The country, the world’s sixth largest emitter, set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 41% below what they would be without action by 2030 on the condition that it receives support from wealthier countries. The commitment comes before a major UN conference on climate change that begins next month that will draw leaders from around the world in hopes of reaching an agreement to reduce global greenhouse emissions.

“One of the main issues we discussed was the issue of climate change,” Obama said after meeting with Widodo on Monday, “and why it’s so important in large countries like ours work together to arrive at the strongest possible set of targets.”

source: time.com