Together develop a safe 'ASEAN habitat' with natural disaster prevention
11/07/23 09:03AM
Disaster risk reduction is one of ASEAN’s top priorities to achieve the goals of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Natural disasters and their devastating consequences

Since the beginning of 2022, many uncommon natural disasters in the world have damaged countries' life quality and economy. For example, the earthquake in Turkey caused severe damage, with about 53,000 deaths and economic losses of over 105 billion USD (according to data on February 6, 2023).

Concurrently, we have witnessed the most substantial snowstorm in 100 years in 20 western and central US states (February), widespread wildfires in Chile, severe floods and landslides in Brazil, and extreme heat waves in China, India, etc.

Since the beginning of the year, Vietnam has been affected by 19 over 22 types of natural disasters. As of July 5, natural disasters have caused 49 deaths or missing, 36 injuries, and economic losses of more than 308 billion VND.

ASEAN is one of the most disaster-prone regions in the world. According to data from the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, natural disasters, including floods, storms, heatwaves, droughts, and even earthquakes and tsunamis, have caused countries in the region to suffer an average annual economic loss of up to 86.5 billion USD.

From 2012 to 2020, at least nearly 3,000 natural disasters occurred in Southeast Asia, including some large-scale storms such as Typhoon Bopha (2012) in the Philippines; Typhoon Haiyan (2013) in the Philippines; Central Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami (2018) in Indonesia, Typhoon Mangkhut (2018) in the Philippines and Typhoon Damrey (2017) in Vietnam.

Multidisciplinary cooperation, multisectoral natural disaster management

As one of the fastest developing regions in the world with rapid urbanization and population growth, Southeast Asia is also facing natural environment degradation and climate change, making the region increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters that are increasing in intensity and frequency.