PH tops international "natural disasters list" for 2011, with 33 major incidents

Philstar.com-citing information from the United Nations  International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR)-reports that "the Philippines topped the disaster league table (of 2011) with 33 major reported events, affecting 12.5 percent of the population." The report did not enumerate the 33 incidents cited.

The report noted: "The UNISDR said tropical storm Sendong, which claimed 1,430 lives after it struck in the middle of the night on December 16, 2011, is the second most deadly disaster of the last 12 months." For 2011, the country’s Sendong death toll is listed as second to Japan’s earthquake-tsunami death toll of 19,846.

Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction Margareta Wahlström and Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario "discussed the need for social mobilization to be linked to early flood warnings to ensure timely evacuations."

The UN’s statement was culled from the figures culled from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT).  The WHO Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) and the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) were also involved in updating the International Disaster Database.

Among the data tables presented was the Number of Reported Natural Disasters by Country (2011). Below are the countries included in the roster and the number of disasters each experienced last year.

1. Philippines (33)
2. People’s Republic of China (21)
3. United States (19)
4. India (11)
5. Indonesia (11)
6. Mexico (1o)
7. Guatemala (7)
8. Japan (7)
9. Brazil (6)
10. Bangladesh, Nigeria, Peru, Thailand, Vietnam (5)

For more on this story, log on to Philstar.com and check out the EM-DAT: The CRED/OFDA - International Disaster Database tables.