By Mami Mizutori
Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR)
Much of the success in reducing mortality from disasters across Asia and the Pacific, particularly in the case of storms and floods, is due to improvements in early warning systems, weather forecasts and timely evacuations. This is a significant achievement.
However, while one can evacuate people, it is impossible at short notice to relocate critical infrastructure such as schools, health facilities, roads, airports, railways, nuclear power plants or manufacturing facilities which end up in harm’s way.
Damage to critical infrastructure is escalating the global cost of extreme weather events, earthquakes and tsunamis, but countries in Asia and the Pacific are suffering inordinately as the level and intensity of disaster events across the region continually raises the bar for resilience
See original post on zilient.org: https://www.zilient.org/article/opinion-disaster-prone-asia-must-not-cut-corners-critical-infrastructure