Preparing the world for disaster.

Rejecting the fatalism of the ancients, world leaders have declared the 1990s the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. Relying on science and technology, as well as human resources, they have embarked on an ambitious disaster prevention plan to minimize the damage caused by natural hazards that still claim over a million lives each decade. Now in its second year, the Decade reflects "an idea whose time has come", in the words of United States National Academy of Sciences President Frank Press, who first proposed the concept in July 1984.

The Decade was proclaimed by the forty-fourth UN General Assembly on 22 December 1989. UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar stated: "The Decade offers an opportunity for the United f Nations to demonstrate its catalytic ability to bring together the diversity of skills, resources and groups needed to stem the losses from natural disasters . . . It has the moral authority to call for disaster reduction efforts by all nations, including the developing ones where the toll from such disasters is most tragic in terms of human losses and economic setbacks."

One does not have to go as far back as Biblical times to recall the death, damage and injury caused with thousands more earthquakes, cyclones, wildfires, avalanches and tornadoes. The volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius near Pompeii, Italy, in 79 A.D. took 20,000 lives; the lesser-known 1931 flooding of the Hwang-ho River in China, 3.7 million lives.

While many deaths were caused by either drowning or fire, disease outbreaks stemming from natural disasters also resulted in fatalities. When earthquakes strike populated areas, buildings collapse, people are killed, and water supplies and waste removal systems are devastated.

Air and food supplies may become contaminated, debris and decay build up and, within a short time, an outbreak of cholera or typhoid may occur. Depending on the severity of the disaster and the swiftness of relief operations, people may suffer from malnutrition and be displaced to become refugees.

It is a generally accepted fact that it is virtually impossible to prevent most natural disasters from occurring. What experience has taught, however, is that we can act to forestall or alleviate their impact on people, property and the environment.

Today, such factors as urbanization, growing population density and poor engineering have contributed to the negative impact of natural disasters on cities and communities. The damage caused by disruption of the development process. Hence, just as "natural" and "man-made" disasters may be linked, so are the issues of development and disaster prevention.

Years of effort wiped out

"Disasters very often wipe out years of efforts and investments in development", said UN Disaster Relief Co-ordinator M'Hamed Essaafi. The Geneva-based Office of the United Nations Disaster Relief Coordinator (UNDRO) acts as the umbrella organization in charge of responding to "emergency" or "sudden" disasters (see story on page 46).

"In disaster-prone countries, disaster mitigation must be considered as part of the development process and should therefore be included in the development plans of these countries", Mr. Essaafi said. An UNDRO study completed last year illustrates this point. During the 20-year peiod from 1970 to 1989, the average yearly losses in the 17 most disaster-prone countries were greater than 2.5 per cent of their gross national product (GNP), the study showed. In at least six of those countries, the losses were greater than 5 per cent of their GNP, which, Mr. Essaafi concluded, "can cripple an economy".

The term "global warming" first appeared in the lexicon of our everyday language in the late 1970s as Nature's way of telling us that industrial development might be threatening the ozone layer of the atmosphere. Meteorologists had already been tracking the ozone for more than three decades, aware that adverse climate changes were on the rise.

Starting in the early 1970s, systematic satellite monitoring showed that the total ozone layer over Antarctica had been drastically decreasing during September and October. A similar pattern of depletion was observed over the North Pole. By 1975, there was mounting public concern that supersonic aircraft might be threatening the ozone in the stratosphere; scientists argued that chemical pollutants, such as carbon dioxide and methane from cars, factories and waste, were heating up the atmosphere.

A dark warning

The 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens in Washington State in the United States also sent a dark warning to humanity, literally, as ash from the blast covered an area half the size of the United States. Could such a phenomenon be related to the flash fires that burned in California's redwood forests in the late 1980s? No one could say for sure, but the debate was on: did something man-made or natural, or both, cause 1988 to be the warmest in 130 days? An answer was not available immediately.

In 1989, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed that there was "clear evidence that human use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs, freons) had significantly affected the ozone layer over the whole globe". Unless something was done, there would be more climate changes, which would impact on hazards, WMO predicted.

"The trend is quite clear", Director Essaafi stated in June 1990. "From the 1960s to the 1980s ... there has been a fivefold increase in the frequency of great natural disasters, and a threefold increase in total economic losses."

Countering such ominous predictions are the advances made in disaster mitigation. These include not only scientific measurements of natural phenomenon, but measures that reduce the vulnerability of communities to hazards, including evacuation plans and early warning systems. Land-use policies, hazard mapping and construction of earthquake-resistant structures are examples of cost-effective preventive measures.

With new technologies being developed at a rapid pace, it made sense to scientists to mount a concerted global effort to prepare nations, especially in the developing world, against the expected increase in natural disasters and economic losses. As Mr. Essaafi remarked, "prevention is possible, and is an investment well worth its cost. If these long-term measures aer complemented by shorter-term preparedness measures ... then losses resulting from disasters can be reduced to a minimum."

That is the premise underlying the Decade programme--disaster mitigation--known in lay terms as preparedness and prevention. The Decade's ultimate goal is the self-sufficiency of all nations to deal with natural disasters. The key objective is to ensure reduction in human loss of life and economic property by informing and educating the world community on how to prepare for disaster.

This is the complementary half to disaster relief work. To many, the shift in focus from post-disaster relief of pre-disaster prevention is long overdue. "People forget that you measure a success in terms of what you can avoid in terms of loss of life, or natural resources", said Philippe Boulle, Chief of the UNDRO New York office. "This is an area that has come to be of increasing importance to everyone."

Sharing technology

While technology can be used to gather data and monitor hazards, it must also be used to disseminate that information. This, in turn, demands that nations share their technology and that professionals be trained in developing countries where gaps in technology exist. In 1988, United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Director-General Federico Mayor told a gathering of top scientists in the field that "the acid test of the Decade would be the ability to make research results available and palatable to those most likely to put them to good use".

Such thinking underlies the stated goals of the Decade, among which is to help individual nations develop programmes and guidelines for preventing natural disasters, taking into account their cultural and economic diversity. The exchange of information is seen as critical, as is the fostering of scientific and engineering endeavours aimed at closing the gaps in knowledge about, for example, locust infestation in Africa. Technology assistance and preparedness training of civil servants, health workers, police and firefighters are examples of the broad educational effort of the Decade. So are the more traditional public information and media campaigns aimed at emphasizing the age-old adage: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

A historic task

So far, the Decade has presented a herculean, task, as well as a historic one, bringing together in a novel way the international scientific and academic community with political leaders and non-governmental organizations. A small secretariat in Geneva is in charge of coordinating and promoting Decade activities, while a 25-member Scientific and Technical Committee has been working with some 30 national committees to assess overall gaps in technology and do a critical per-country needs assessment. A trust fund has been set up to raise money for the Decade, with such well-known figures as Marilyn Quayle, wife of United States Vice-President Dan Quayle, working hard to promote disaster mitigation.

In addition to UNDRO, the key UN organizations actively implementing the plan are the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Children's Fund, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Environment Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization and UNESCO. These, among others, have taken on the task of linking disaster prevention with ongoing development activities. Other issues concern applications and governmental policy.

As noted earlier, however, the final responsibility for the success of the Decade rests on national authorities. By the year 2000, Decade planners hope to have drafted a Universal Declaration of Principles regarding natural disaster reduction.

Under the Decade's proposed framework programme, disaster mitigation falls into three types of activity: assessment of risks (hazard evaluation); preparedness; and warning, including early warning systems. These categories illustrate the different activities performed before, during the after a natural disaster strikes. It is an approach experts call "integrated", which means that regional or national efforts at disaster intervention must be coordinated with international efforts to mobilize resources and provide emergency relief.

Italian ecologist Carlo Pelanda, a former member of an Ad Hoc Group of Experts working on the Decade, has suggested that disaster reduction policies must be tied not only to national development and modernization, but also to environmental and disarmament policies of nations as well.

"The setting up of small- and large-scale civil engineering projects for rural and urban (re)structuring and maintenance, (with the support of common technologies) is a good example of such a merger", said Mr. Pelanda. Regarding disarmament, he said, the Decade provided an opportunity to demilitarize satellites and other technologies used for military purposes by converting them into "international civil security" systems for disaster prevention.

To date, 95 per cent of disaster-related deaths have occurred in developing countries, where over two thirds of the world's population live in conditions of economic poverty and limited resources. For this reason, implementation of the Decade will have to be done on a grass roots level, as well as regionally and nationally. Over long years of experience, development workers have learned that the best plans will go awry if they do not correspond to the needs of affected communities. Disaster mitigation is no different.

Last July, UNDRO and UNDP officials launched a joint three-year Decade training programme aimed at community groups, as well as UN agency field staff. They hope to directly train 3,500 persons in disaster mitigation work by 1993. Indirect training will then be given to ministry and government officials, local leaders, and civil defence and emergency health workers, as well as to populations vulnerable to hazards.

The training initiative has been perfected by development workers. It is an example of how Decade projects are being modelled after known successes. Another is the UN International Emergency Network (UNIENET), a computer database system, which serves as an electronic billboard for Decade activities, as well as the latest data available on disasters in the making (see story on page 52).

As it stands, the Decade is seen as building on existing systems and approaches in a complementary manner. One such network is Interaction, a broad coalition of private voluntary organizations working in the areas of development, refugees, and disaster relief (see story on page 54).

Several concrete steps have been taken to get the Decade moving. Phase one activities in 1990 included assessments of the needs of individual countries. The UN also declared 10 October as the International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction. In addition to the training programme, recent activities have included the first meeting of the Scientific and Technical Committee in Bonn, Germany, from 4 to 8 March.

The Committee session followed a number of international preparatory meetings on the Decade last year in Japan, Rome and Morocco.

In March, the Committee adopted at its first session the Hazard Prevention, Reduction, Environmental Safeguarding, Monitoring Programme with Targets (HAZARD PRE-EMPT), a set of guidelines for identifying hazard-control targets. It also endorsed the proposed structure for the Decade's framework programme with some additions, adopted initial criteria for project approval and selected 12 (5 ongoing, 7 new) demonstration projects, among them, a pilot project for disaster mitigation in hospital facilities in Latin America and one on international centres for research and training in mitigation of risks.

A second Committee meeting is being considered later in 1991. Also discussed in Bonn was the need for a regional meeting of the National Committees for the Decade and a possible 1993 global meeting conference on the Decade.

Examples of regional support for the Decade include the establishment last year of a seismic network in Colombia, the first of its kind in South America. On the international front, Morocco has offered facilities to stockpile relief supplies and material in the event of a sudden disaster. Other countries have put into place a variety of larger and smaller projects aimed at fulfilling the long-term goals of national preparedness.

There have been obstacles along the way as well. Some countries have expressed concern that the Decade is advancing more slowly than planned. In October 1990, representatives from Bangladesh, the United Republic of Tanzania, Japan, the USSR and Colombia were quick to praise the work done by UNDRO as the umbrella agency for disaster mitigation. But they also expressed concern that staffing shortages and lack of funds were straining UN disaster-related work.

In reality, the march of Nature has forced agencies like UNDRO to cope with a greater number of sudden disasters than previously projected.

Will future generations look up to the sky and see a shining sun? Will locusts become a threat remembered only by historians? Decade planners hope so. They leave us with the message: Be prepared!