| The countries of East Asia and Pacific (EAP) suffer greatly from the adverse physical, social and economic impacts of natural disasters. Some 82% of all lives lost and 85% of all those affected by disasters since 1997, live here. Factors such as climate change, urbanization and environmental degradation have increased the severity and rate of natural disasters from roughly 120 events annually in the 1980s to about 500 events today. This trend is also causing widespread destruction of billions of dollars worth of assets annually in some of the world’s most densely populated areas. The unacceptably high loss of lives, human anguish and economic reversals led to a World Bank policy review in 2007 expanding the traditional emphasis on post-crisis damage assessments and reconstruction to disaster prevention and risk reduction through a series of development and policy initiatives with governments across the region. Over the last decade, Disaster Risk Management (DRM) projects have shown convincingly how lives can be saved and critical infrastructure spared using new technologies, emergency and city planning, building codes, climate change adaptation and risk financing mechanisms. For instance, Cyclone Nargis killed 130,000 in Myanmar in 2008 compared to 3,000 who died around the same time when Cyclone Ramshi hit Bangladesh—the difference was Bangladesh’s active cyclone risk reduction program. With the fastest rate of urbanization in history—over one million urban migrants a month in EAP—reducing the impact of disasters has become intrinsic to fighting poverty. Indeed, development choices made today can influence future disasters and their impact. Six of the ten most vulnerable countries to climate change events are in the East Asia region, and development in several Pacific island nations depends on adequate measures to reduce disaster losses caused by rising sea levels and environmental degradation. Many aspects of climate change adaptation are disaster risk management and new initiatives are being launched with partners and governments in the region to help vulnerable nations meet this growing challenge. 
Vulnerability among these growing populations is amplified by a combination of increased climate events and urban/coastal migration: over 162 million people in EAP face displacement because of climate-change induced rises in sea-levels—including over 20% of Vietnam’s total population. Some 65 % of people exposed globally to flood risk live in EAP’s coastal megacities compared to 3% in South America and 1% in Australia. In addition, 75% of the world’s active and dormant volcanoes are situated along the eastern edge of Asia and South East Asia; these areas are also extremely seismically active and can have devastating consequences: for instance, the May 2008 Wenchuan quake led to 70,000 deaths and US$9.6 billion in economic losses. In 2009, six of the ten countries with highest natural disaster related mortality rates, and also six of the ten countries whose GDP were impacted most by natural disasters were from Asia and Pacific region. The increasing intensity of disasters can be seen for instance, in Samoa where the total economic value of damage and loss caused by the 2009 Tsunami is estimated at about US$104.4 million equivalent to about 20% of the country’s GDP. back to top
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