Tuesday, October 26, 2010

WB Urges Collective Action to Reduce Climate Change and Natural Disasters Impacts on Asian Economies

Seoul, Korea, October 26, 2010 — The World Bank today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding later this year with the Government of Korea, to strengthen cooperation and sharing of expertise in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation among Asian nations. This is “both timely and relevant, given the increasing convergence of the disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation agendas,” said World Bank Sector Director for Sustainable Development in the East Asia and Pacific region (EAP), John Roome, pledging Bank’s support for the implementation of the Incheon road map at a high level plenary of the 4th Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction here today.

In 2009, World Bank data shows 6 of the 10 countries with the highest losses of GDP from natural disasters were from Asia Pacific, as were 82 per cent of all disaster-related deaths since 1997 (according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, IFRC). And it’s the region’s poorer countries and people who suffer most in terms of number of lives lost, livelihoods and assets destroyed. For instance: low income countries carry about one-eighth the risk of global tropical cyclones but sustain four-fifths of the mortality risk.

With 85 percent of all disaster victims concentrated in the region, mitigating its particular set of vulnerabilities is crucial. These include an unprecedented rate of urbanization, weak institutional arrangements, lack of proper risk monitoring and disaster preparedness, combined with increasing seismic and climatic events.

“Responding to this challenge will require new models of cooperation and coordinated policy responses across multiple sectors, agencies and ministries; and a new set of policy instruments for decision-making under deep uncertainty,” said Roome. “The development choices we make today will impact the outcomes of disasters tomorrow, whether it is safer schools and roads, better land use planning or financial planning and improved policy frameworks. We can take action today that will reduce loss of life and economic assets tomorrow,” he said.

New research by the Bank shows the cost of adapting to an approximately 2°Centigrade warmer world by 2050 is in the range of US $75 billion to US$100 billion a year—of which Asia-Pacific’s share is highest. The findings are part of a forthcoming World Bank report on the Economics of Climate Change which notes the bulk of this investment will be needed to improve and adapt infrastructure including drainage and public buildings, coastal zones, water supply and flood protection. This will account for about 54 percent of adaptation costs, while roads will account for 23 percent.

This highlights the importance of achieving concrete results at the forthcoming UN Climate Change Conference in December in Cancun. While the World Bank Group is not a party to the negotiations, it is deeply concerned that without progress on climate change, progress on global poverty reduction will be undermined. The Bank is actively working with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and client countries, including in EAP, towards supporting an eventual global deal and enabling action on the ground.

The World Bank has an approximately US$1.5 billion Disaster Risk Management (DRM) portfolio in East Asia and the Pacific. While the bulk of it is targeted at sustainable reconstruction following earthquakes in China and Indonesia, new initiatives include Climate Change Development Policy Loans in Vietnam and Indonesia, risk modeling for the Mekong delta and a proposed Catastrophe Risk Financing framework for the Pacific islands. Over US$300 million is currently invested in pilots and scaling up of programs that have successfully helped poor communities cope better with disasters, DRM capacity building and early warning systems. The increasingly transnational impact of disasters underlines the importance of strengthening partnerships in disaster risk management and climate change adaptation. The World Bank, through the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) and its donor members, is emerging as an integral part of the evolving global climate adaptation financing architecture.

“The increased demand from countries for preventive investments in disaster risk reduction in areas like early warning systems, community-based disaster risk management and resilient infrastructure indicates a growing awareness of the risks posed to decades of hard-won growth and poverty reduction from climate change and disasters,” said Abhas Jha, World Bank Program Leader for Disaster Risk Management in East Asia and Pacific. “The World Bank and its partners are responding to this demand in a number of innovative ways with new financial instruments, risk analysis of investments and capacity building.”

MYANMAR: Cyclone Giri tests government-aid agency relations

BANGKOK, 25 October 2010 (IRIN) - Cooperation has been good between relief agencies and national authorities after Cyclone Giri struck western Myanmar on 22 October, but it is still too early to know what access international staff will have to the hardest-hit areas.

“Neutral humanitarian assistance is more accepted now than in [Cyclone] Nargis times, so we will see in the coming days,” said Bernd Schell, head of delegation for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Myanmar.

Cyclone Nargis, which hit in May 2008, became the largest natural disaster the country had experienced.

International relief agencies in Yangon, the capital of Myanmar, have begun sending national staff members to the coastal western state of Rakhine to join colleagues already in the field measuring damage inflicted by the category-4 storm (category 5 is the worst).

“We have sent out two teams this morning [from Yangon] and have one more going out this afternoon,” said Schell. IFRC’s international staff is on “stand-by” in the capital, ready to join national staff carrying out assessments in the field and awaiting permission to deploy, he added. “We have requested access and are ready go.”

Thus far, international NGOs have only sent national staff to cyclone-hit areas to join national NGOs already working in affected villages.

Schell said local capacity to respond to disasters had improved in recent years, alleviating some pressure on international staff to go into the field.

“A lot of support had been given to the areas that were hit this time, which helped to minimize damage,” he said. Teams of 30-50 Red Cross national volunteers have already begun damage assessments in eight townships in Rakhine State. Some of the hardest-hit communities have been trained in disaster preparedness.

There has been “major learning” since Nargis, UN Resident Coordinator Bishow Parajuli said. “This is evidenced by the advance deployments, evacuations [from high-risk areas]. Details are still emerging.”

Early estimates show two-digit deaths and injuries and up to 10,000 homes damaged, he added.

“International and national UN staff are on stand-by for deployment, depending on the level of devastation and expertise needed,” said Parajuli.

A preliminary Red Cross assessment in one of the townships hit, Kyaupyu, on 24 October, showed at least 4,500 affected people. Information from ongoing village visits has shown still-unquantified housing and agricultural damage, added IFRC’s Schell.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is compiling information from relief agencies for an updated report on the cyclone’s aftermath for publication on 26 October.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Fifteen dead found with sunken Vietnamese bus

HANOI, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Vietnamese salvage crews dragged a sunken bus and the bodies of 15 passengers out of a swollen river on Thursday, three days after floodwaters swept the vehicle off a highway in central Vietnam, media reported.

The end of the rainy season often brings severe weather in east Asia. One of the biggest typhoons in years was threatening the Chinese coast after battering the Philippines while Thailand and Cambodia were also facing deadly floods.

In Vietnam, some of the worst flooding in years had killed 54 people and left 20 missing in the past week, according to the government’s main website (http://www.chinhphu.vn).

Several dozen other people were killed in flooding about two weeks ago in the same region, which is outside Vietnam’s main rice-growing area and far north of the Central Highlands coffee belt.

Hundreds of people crowded on a hill to watch the salvage operation that began early on Thursday, 320 km (200 miles) south of Hanoi in Ha Tinh province.

People lit incense for the dead on the bank of the brown Lam river, where the bus was submerged, media photographs showed.

Ten of the bodies recovered on Thursday were found in the bus and the other five were in the river nearby, VnExpress.net reported.

There were 37 people on the bus when it was overcome by the floodwater and 18 escaped before it sank, the Vietnamnet.vn website reported. The others were not accounted for.

The sunken bus could not be found for three days and the head of the provincial border guard even consulted a famous psychic to try to locate it, it said.

Officials finally found it late on Wednesday, not far from where the psychic had predicted it would be, but they decided not to try to dredge it out until Thursday, it said.

From Ox Carts to Canoes, Viet Nam Red Cross uses what it takes to reach flood survivors

Viet Nam has been inundated with two serious floods in as many weeks, as flood waters rose swiftly after exceptionally heavy rains. Over 80 are confirmed dead after the two instances and some half million are affected.

Though footage of the army delivering food via helicopter has made the evening news in Viet Nam some of the transportation means used by the Viet Nam Red Cross have been much more humble, but effective in getting to those in need: xe bo, or simple carts hauled through isolated areas by cows.

These xe bo working in the service of local branches of the Red Cross have been delivering instant noodles, clothes and clean drinking water to people in remote, storm affected areas, such as Quang Binh’s Tan Hoa commune in Minh Hoa district.

According to Cao Quang Canh, vice president of the Quang Binh provincial Red Cross branch, “Sixty per cent of the commune is isolated and there was still no electricity when we were there.”

From Oxen to Canoes

Where oxen can’t make it canoes have, delivering supplies to families affected by two serious floods in as many weeks. Though storm season is always tough on Viet Nam, this year’s serious flooding has taken a heavier toll than usual. .

Bui Thi Mai, the president of the Nghe An Red Cross, a province which has been worse affected by these floods said of her trip to Nghi Yen commune, “All I could see was the flood, dotted with rooftops sticking out. When we reached the town we took canoes for a seven kilometre trip to distribute noodles to villages.”

She said she saw carrying their farm animals to boats to go to the basic, temporary tents erected to offer shelter. All elderly and young were evacuated to safe houses earlier.

Health an issue

Health is an issue as waters have not receded, people are eating instant noodles raw as they have no hot water. After two days of being wet and cold some are getting fevers. Ms Mai says this is the worst flood in at least sixty years.

What looked like an ordinary depression over the South China Sea delivered some of the heaviest rain and worst flooding Viet Nam has seen in recent years.

The rains, which began October 1 and continued for days, killed over 60 people, destroyed crops, live stock and infrastructure. Medical facilities and schools have particularly suffered. Of the five affected provinces - Thua Thien Hue, Nghe An, Quang Tri, Ha Tinh and Quang Binh - two have been badly hit.

The central coast is regularly battered by storms and deluged in rain and floods. ‘Living with floods’ is more than a slogan here; it’s an often daily reality. However thanks to less early warning than normal - such severe floods are often prefaced with a typhoon or tropical storm - many did not have time to adequately prepare. Added to that the sheer volume of rainfall, up to 900 milimeters in some cases, has meant that an estimated half million people were left affected.

Fresh rains add trouble

After four more days of rain, from October 14, three provinces are in trouble, according to authorities - Nghe An, Quang Binh and Ha Tinh - and 27 are confirmed dead. Another 20 are missing after a bus travelling along main artery Highway 1 from Dack Nong province to the capital Hanoi was washed off the road in Ha Tinh province by a 60-centemetre deep flood.

Seventeen, including the driver, survived by grabbing things near to hand. The missing 20 are presumed dead, according to authorities. Few know how to swim in Viet Nam and drowning after floods or boats capsizing is common.

According to authorities over 120,000 people have been evacuated from their homes and 3,500 people have been transferred via bus to various cities after flooding left train tracks unusable.

Quang Binh Red Cross’ Vice President Canh says this is the worst flood of sixty years. “People are stunned, and desperate,” he said.

“The impact of two floods within two weeks,” has been very hard. Those who have lost their homes are staying with neighbours, a good sign of community resilience according to Canh, but “we are worried about food” and how to restore people’s livelhihoods after this disaster remains a key concern for the future.

By Helen Clark and Van Ngyuyen, IFRC, Hanoi

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

News from Cyclone MEGI 19th October 2010

Viet Nam floods kill 41, survivors ‘destitute’

HANOI — Flooding in central Vietnam has killed 41 people and left survivors destitute, officials said Tuesday, as relatives of at least 15 missing bus passengers watched rescuers scour a river for their loved ones.

The heavy rains that began late last week have washed over three provinces: Nghe An, Quang Binh, and Ha Tinh. In Ha Tinh police said a bus had disappeared in the flood waters on the main north-south highway on Monday.

State television said hundreds of soldiers using boats and metal detectors had been mobilised to search for the bus passengers.

“This morning we used army engineers and their special boats, for detecting bombs and mines, to try to locate the bus that was swept away by the water. But it has been in vain until now,” Lieutenant General Pham Quoc Cuong said on state television.

Police and local residents also joined the search, which was hampered by strong currents, Tran Van Long, deputy head of Nghi Xuan district police, told AFP.

“We think the bus carried between 33 and 37 people. Eighteen people have been rescued,” Long said. “We haven’t been able to locate the bus as the water has been so strong.”

He said about 50 relatives of the missing were at the scene beside the swollen Lam River, near Vinh city, where rain had stopped and the waters were gradually receding.

“The disaster has left thousands of people in the province penniless after their assets were swept away in the flood waters. They have nothing left to eat or drink,” the chairman of Ha Tinh’s local government, Vo Kim Cu, was quoted as saying in the state Vietnam News on Tuesday.

Authorities said more than 150,000 homes had been flooded but emergency supplies including dry noodles, drinking water, medication, and life jackets had been sent to affected areas.

Television pictures showed rescuers in boats delivering instant noodles.

People have suffered “a very severe shortage of food products” in recent days and the top priority is to get them water and something to eat, Nguyen Bang Toan, a Communist Party district chief in Ha Tinh, said on state television.

“We have to save them from hunger,” he said.

The international Red Cross on Monday appealed for more than one million dollars in aid for victims of the flooding, the second major inundation to hit the central region this month.

Flooding earlier left at least 64 people dead in Quang Binh and other central provinces.

“The country is finding greater intensity of floods, greater intensity of droughts,” the World Bank’s vice-president for sustainable development, Inger Andersen, told AFP late Monday in Vietnam.

Andersen, who is on an Asian tour, said climate change was the biggest sustainable development challenge facing Vietnam.

“Managing floods and droughts… becomes absolutely key to mitigating against climatic shocks and climatic events,” she said.

See Floods Central Vietnam SitRep o.8 18 October 2010

Monday, October 18, 2010

Viet Nam: Experts assess flood preparedness

HO CHI MINH CITY, 18 October 2010 (IRIN) - As central Vietnam continued to be battered by flooding that has killed at least 66 and affected half a million people since 2 October, IRIN asked three experts to assess the country’s level of preparedness for flooding that typically occurs from August to November.

The storms quickly inundated five out of 58 provinces nationally - Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Nghe An, Quang Tri, and Thua Thien Hue - causing widespread damage to crops, housing and livestock. Record rains on 14-16 October flooded an additional 50,000 homes. The country is in the path of a super typhoon due to hit the Philippines shortly before continuing on through Vietnam.

Van Dang Tao, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies disaster management programme manager:

“People living with floods have experience [in dealing with floods]. They’ve built mezzanines in their houses and put things up there, such as firewood, food and drinking water. Fifty percent of the evacuation [this time] was organized by local people. The local People’s Committee also has a plan of action and a list of task forces to cope with natural hazards annually.

“It is very difficult to implement or undertake preparedness with this flood as it happened at night and so quickly. Local people did not have enough time to save their items. One new lesson learnt by local people is that they need to put things up on higher ground when heavy rain occurs and not wait until water levels have risen.

“The Vietnam Red Cross helps people to plan, conducts contingency planning, trains teachers and children at primary schools on doing things before, during and after floods, storms and other hazards.

“In terms of capacity building time is needed to train people… Regular training and workshops are needed [and] need to be updated to include climate change information.”

Ian Wilderspin, UN Development Programme senior technical adviser, disaster risk management:

“Generally I think Vietnam’s level of preparedness is pretty good especially when it comes to storm tracking. They don’t always get it right, but it’s difficult for anyone. The challenge here was that a normal depression came over the country - and what was unexpected was the sheer volume of rain that fell very quickly.

“The locations of important infrastructure need to be improved. pregnant women had to climb up a ladder into a small hole [in attics] to give birth, with the water rising.

“It [preparedness] needs to be taken at different levels in a more coherent and coordinated fashion than going around responding and pulling people off rooftops.

“It was an unusual event in a confined locality. We are likely to see more of these unusual, intense weather related events. This is how it’s going to be. [Overall] five provinces were affected and there are question[s] over human resource capacity and equipment. how modern the equipment is. There is a need for more [weather monitoring] stations along the coast.

“It’s about getting accurate messages [out] in a timely way; that’s the critical thing. There is a need for some improvement. It’s what they call end-to-end early warning systems. Satellite info is transmitted in a timely and understandable way to villages and households. It’s the last mile.

“There is a need to recognize that a lot has been done in terms of messages that get out to fishermen and boats. It comes down to pouring more resources into the whole area.

“They did get out a lot of people from the areas affected in a pretty timely way. This is what always comes up after a disaster - that preparedness can always be better. We’ve been saying the same thing for decades really.”

Central Committee for Flood and Storm Control (Government employee requested anonymity):

“We get the [storm] information from the meteorological agency and it goes into our system for the flood and storm committee, and it also goes to the media, such as newspapers, TV and radio, like Voice of Vietnam, so we can warn the community.

“We just send a warning to the provincial levels [of the storm committee]. They then send it out to the other levels.

“Distribution of measuring stations in mountainous areas is not good enough. We need more stations.”

Additional flooding in North-Central Vietnam kills 20 people
Over the last four days, from 14th till 18th of October, a large amount of rain affected Nghe An (up to 968mm), Ha Tinh (up to 938mm) and Quang Binh (up to 787mm). As a result, more than 152,203 houses were flooded and 20 people were killed.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Let businesses take the lead - in the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam ?

The government’s policy to prioritize certain industries and encourage businesses to invest in them should be abandoned, experts say.

They say that businesses should decide what they want to do based on their reading of the market, and the government should support them by creating favorable conditions for business development.

Nguyen Xuan Thanh, a lecturer with the Fulbright Economics Teaching Program, told the Thoi Bao Kinh Te Saigon magazine that the experience of other countries showed choosing a certain industry or industries and giving them priority treatment had failed, most of the time.

“With the development of technologies and the global restructuring of labor forces proceeding at a fast pace, such a policy is no longer suitable,” Thanh said.

Vietnam has focused on several industries based on “the government’s orientation,” he said, but this has not paid off.

The automobile and electronics industries, which have been priorities for many years, have made little progress with most companies still engaged in assembly work, he said. Other sectors like sericulture and shipbuilding had actually regressed despite being given very favorable conditions.

On the contrary, some sectors have grown well even though the government did not set any clear orientation for their development. The tra fish sector, for instance, was driven by farmers as they saw the export potential of the fish, which used to be underrated earlier because of their low value, Thanh said.

“It’s the farmers who decided to raise the fish, not because the government told them to do so,” he said.

Huynh The Du, also from the Fulbright Economics Teaching Program, said the growth of a certain sector of the economy is mainly determined by businesses.

For example, Ho Chi Minh City has a strong financial and banking sector because it is home to many banks and financial companies. “It’s all about costs and benefits. Businesses have flocked to the city not due to any policy but simply because they can find favorable conditions for their business and a better chance to earn profits.”

“Businesses have the best understanding of the market, but sometimes they make mistakes,” Thanh said. “So how come government officials who do not have firsthand business experience decide (what is good) for businesses?”

The success of the tra fish sector was possible because the government gave it the right kind of support – by facilitating research of new breeds and scouting export markets, Thanh said. “That’s the role of the government: to create favorable conditions. Once the business environment has been improved, if an industry fails to grow, it means it doesn’t have the potential.”

Economist Tran Du Lich said infrastructure is one of the bottlenecks that the government needs to remove to help businesses, along with improving the quality of human resources.

Taking logistics as an example, it would be difficult for the industry to grow if the road system to seaports is not improved, said Lich, who is also a National Assembly representative.

Thanh said the government should also review the policies that can have negative impacts on doing business.

For instance, the financial sector in HCMC can be affected by a regulation that bans high-rise buildings in the city center, he said.

The nature of financial services is that they concentrate on a small area, which can be seen in all financial centers like Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo. A ban on high buildings will increase rentals in the city downtown, discouraging investors, he said.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Cyclone N°15 Megi (Catfish) on the way to Viet Nam ?

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Viet Nam: Cyclones in the past

See the presentation “Cyclones in the past”

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Vietnam floods kill 66, half a million affected

HANOI (AlertNet) - Heavy flooding has killed 66 people and affected half a million across five provinces in central Vietnam, according to aid agencies.

The United Nations’ situation report published on Monday also said some 150,000 houses were flooded and over 2,000 have collapsed completely following rains that began on October 1.

Five provinces were initially badly hit but water has receded in three—Nghe An, Thua Thien Hue and Quang Tri—whilst two, Ha Tinh and Quang Binh, are still considered to be in need of relief.

“A lot of food has been destroyed, both stored food and crops… a substantive number,” Bhupinder Tomar, Red Cross Head of Mission in Vietnam, told AlertNet.

It is estimated that food shortages will persist in Quang Binh for four months and there is a “high need” for emergency relief and recovery, according to the report.

Ian Wilderspin of the UNDP said the floods were “quite localised but (have) a very severe impact on those (affected) areas.”

Those having nowhere to go are being housed in Red Cross-donated tents.

Access to the affected areas is difficult and “expected to worsen with more rains forecast,” a statement from the Red Cross said.

Relief efforts are underway, led by the ministry of defence which has delivered food such as instant noodle via helicopters and the navy has rescued fishermen caught at sea.

Wilderspin said the response by the government had been speedy.

“They immediately provided finance and a fairly sizeable amount of rice,” he said.

State media also announced that all but one of the 29 fireworks displays planned for capital Hanoi’s 1,000-year birthday celebration would be cancelled and the funds diverted to flood victims.

Many citizens had questioned the large cost of celebrations during a period of trouble and a large container of the fireworks had exploded last week, killing four.

The floods hit one of Vietnam’s key rice growing areas. However, outside of Quang Binh, no major crop loss has been reported. Vietnam is the world’s second largest rice exporter, after Thailand.

Levels are now rising in three rivers in south central and southern Vietnam thanks to a depression over the East Sea.

Flood and storm season in Vietnam’s central coastal region typically begins in late-August to September and can continue until November. The area is regularly battered by typhoons, tropical storms and floods. Last year Typhoon Ketsana killed some 16O after blowing across the South China Sea from the Philippines.

See Reports on the situation

Thursday, October 07, 2010

Vietnam flood death toll 49: officials

Date: 06 Oct 2010

HANOI — The death toll from floods that devastated central Vietnam in recent days has jumped to 49, disaster officials said Wednesday.

Hardest-hit Quang Binh province recorded 33 fatalities, with 14 people still missing, after additional information reached provincial officials, said Nguyen Truong Giang of the province’s flood and storm control department.

“We could only receive information from them today,” Giang said late Wednesday. “The weather in our province is improving. Water levels have started receding, but slowly.”

The 16 other deaths came in Ha Tinh, Nghe An and Quang Tri provinces, the national storm department said.

In Ha Tinh, which reported seven deaths, the heavy rains and rising waters have inundated at least 8,400 hectares (20,700 acres) of crops while damaging nearly 27,000 houses, the provincial flood and storm control department said.

The province said it urgently needed “at least 60 tonnes of instant noodles, 8,000 boxes of mineral water and 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) of chemicals to clean water for domestic use”.

Hundreds of military personnel have been mobilised to help evacuate residents threatened by the flood waters.

According to the Thanh Nien newspaper, several trains between Hanoi and the southern economic hub of Ho Chi Minh City were delayed as rail tracks were under water.

Key roads were also hit. State-run Vietnam Television said thousands of cars and trucks were stuck on the main national Highway 1 which had been damaged.

On Tuesday, the army airlifted food and other aid to devastated areas.

Vietnam regularly suffers from tropical storms and flooding at this time of year.

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

6 people die due to serious flooding in Central provinces (4 October 2010)

Torrential rains and consequent flooding over the last days have caused 6 deaths, 2 injured, and more than 6,294 houses flooded or damaged.

Flood situation:
- Emergency warning for rivers from Ha Tinh to Thua Thien Hue
- Last night, river levels peaked in Quang Binh, but are now receding
- At 0.00am, Oct. 4: Gianh river (Mai Hoa) 7.7m – Kien Giang river (Le Thuy) 2.73m
- However, at this moment, river levels in Ha Tinh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue are still increasing

Reservoir situation:
- Many reservoirs in Ha Tinh province are currently full
- High risk at Ho Ho hydro-power dam: one metre over its peak and at risk of breaching

Damages

According to quick reports of the Ha Tinh, Quang Binh and Quang Tri Provincial Committees for Flood and Storm Control, at 7pm on 3rd October 2010:
- Death: 6 people (Ha Tinh 4 ; Quang Binh:1; Quang Tr: 1)
- Injured: 2 people (Ha Tinh:1; Quang Binh:1)
- Flooded and damaged house: 6.294 houses (Quang Binh)
- Ho Ho dam: 1 machine unit washed away and damage power plant behind the dam Ho Ho

Thursday, September 30, 2010

PHILIPPINES: Disaster mitigation begins at home

MANILA, 29 September 2010 (IRIN) - One year after typhoon Ketsana killed more than 1,000 people and affected up to 10 million , Filipinos are taking it upon themselves to protect their communities against similar disasters.

“What do we do to make ourselves ready in case a typhoon like that comes again? We cannot just wait for help to come to us,” said Teresita Deles, a member of the Marikina People Power Volunteers, one of several community-based groups that has mobilized a preparedness response since Ketsana.

In Marikina City, within Metro Manila and one of the worst-hit areas, the group has installed flood markers and begun distributing bahangas, six-person rubber rescue boats designed to transport residents through the narrow streets of Metro Manila to higher ground.

“It’s no guarantee, but if anything should happen, we are better prepared,” Deles told IRIN.

The flood markers act as an early-warning mechanism. If the water rises higher than the markers, city residents are immediately contacted by the volunteers and warned to leave.

The lack of rubber boats was one of the factors that delayed rescue operations during typhoon Ketsana.

DIY flood-proofing

Several kilometers away, two families in Pasig City - another of the worst-hit areas - have found ways to “flood-proof” their homes and businesses.

The Surla family spent US$2,200 to build a rubber-sealed, waterproof gate and buy a pump to prevent - or at the very least, delay - floodwaters from entering their home, which was submerged in almost 2m high water a year ago.

“It’s a replica of my in-laws’ gate in Tagbilaran City,” said Allen Surla. “It was built after a major flood in the city five years ago. It has since withstood so many typhoons. It works. It secures their compound.”

In similar self-reliant fashion, the Sanchez family of Sagad Village has elevated the flooring of their toy shop and built a cement barrier in front of their family-owned grocery store.

“We lost a lot of money after Ketsana. With the barrier, I hope floodwaters will not come in any more. The barrier gives me peace of mind,” said Aurora Sanchez, 63.

Government help needed

Some government officials are calling for more help to facilitate the efforts of these communities.

“We need to identify long-term solutions to the climate crisis along with the means to fund programmes that will allow our people to cope with the rapidly and dangerously changing climate,” said Senator Juan Ponce Enrile.

Since last year, several bills have been filed to provide local government units with funding to educate and train people on how to protect their communities from extreme weather conditions. Congress will soon deliberate on the next year’s budget.

According to a December 2009 World Bank report  , which assessed the damage caused by the twin typhoons last year, some 83,000 households in danger zones in Metro Manila need to be relocated.

The report said a total of $1.72 billion would be needed to address shelter and transitional housing, rebuilding and new homes for families living in flood-prone areas.

Until the funding is available, local populations, such as the Surla and the Sanchez families, will have to fend for themselves.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

CLIMATE CHANGE: Adaptation Fund starts delivering

Johannesburg, 24 September 2010 (IRIN) - In what is being hailed as a breakthrough for a “collective effort” by developed and developing countries, the Adaptation Fund set up by the UN to help poor countries cope with the unfolding impact of climate change has finally become operational.

Last week, the Fund’s board approved two adaptation projects, one in Senegal - threatened by sea-level rise, less rainfall and high temperatures - and the other in Honduras, which faces increasing water shortages.

The two projects worth a total of about US$14 million are not only the first to be approved by the board but also the first to get money directly from the Fund. Developing countries had been lobbying for direct access, and have now been granted control over how to spend the funds.

The decision is good news ahead of more UN climate change talks slated for December in Mexico.

The money for the Senegal project will be used to implement the country’s National Adaptation Plan for Action in the areas of Rufisque, Saly and Joal, along the country’s west coast, and will cover actions to protect houses from flooding, erosion and sea-level rise. The project also aims to help rice growers and the fishing community in the region adapt to increased salinization.

Honduras will use the funds to improve water management in its capital region of Tegucigalpa. At least 13,000 households stand to benefit.

Direct access

Direct access marks yet another “positive and innovative action” by the Fund, said Saleemul Huq, lead author of the chapter on adaptation in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fourth assessment report.

Huq, a senior fellow at the UK-based policy think-tank International Institute for Environment and Development, said the decision adds to the growing list of “positive and innovative features” of the Adaptation Fund. He said these included “its uniquely innovative source of funding through an adaptation levy, its governance structure, which - again uniquely - has a majority of developing countries, and its genuinely participatory and collegial board”.

Besides direct contributions from developed countries, the Fund raises money from a levy of about 2 percent on credits generated by the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) set up under the Kyoto Protocol, which in turn operates under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The mechanism allows industrialized countries to earn and trade emission credits by implementing projects in developed or developing countries; they can then put the credits towards meeting their greenhouse gas emission targets.

Sven Harmeling, co-chair of the adaptation working group of Climate Action Network International, a global coalition of NGOs, said the Fund’s board “has shown that a collective effort of experts from developed and developing countries, even with a majority of developing country representatives, has been able to set up a consolidated Fund which had to face many complex and new issues, and which manages to address concerns from different sides with regard to fiduciary standards for direct access.”

“Developing countries should now do their best to show that they really want to use the direct access opportunity, to show that they are willing to take up the associated responsibility,” he said.

The decision to set up the Fund was taken almost 10 years ago under the Kyoto Protocol. Vulnerable countries are given the option of directly accessing money through their national institutions charged with implementing the projects. The first such body - Le Centre de Suivie Écologique du Sénégal - was approved in April 2010.

Similarities with Global Fund

The Fund’s direct access approach is “unique in international environmental governance”, said Harmeling, pointing out that the only similar example was the Global Fund to Fight HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which had inspired it.

“Both funds are the only ones which allow developing countries to directly access resources, and in my view the Global Fund has shown that it is a workable approach, which can increase significantly the ownership of developing countries… Of course, the scale of the two Funds cannot be compared, since the Global Fund manages several billion dollars.”

Harmeling, who is also senior adviser at Germanwatch, a North-South watchdog initiative, asked: “However, if donors admit to give billions of dollars in a direct access health fund, why shouldn’t they in an international climate fund?”

Short of funds

Marcia Levaggi, manager of the Adaptation Fund’s board secretariat, told IRIN, the Fund had about $150 million - far short of the sum required, according to various estimates.

UNFCCC reckons that by 2030 poor countries would need $28-59 billion a year to adapt; the World Bank $20-100 billion; the European Union Commission $10-24 billion a year by 2020; and the African Group of climate change negotiators more than $67 billion a year by 2020.

Huq noted that while “money is available in the short term for initial projects”, there could be bottlenecks “as more countries get their national implementing entities approved and submit project proposals”.

Model for the future?

There is still a lot to learn and build on for the Adaptation Fund, which could be the “model for the future” for other climate financing mechanisms, reckoned Harmeling.

The Global Fund’s country-coordinating mechanisms such as the multi-stakeholder forum, which decides on which proposals to submit could be a feature to emulate, he suggested.

The Adaptation Fund also needed to build on its repository of national implementing entities “as much as possible while at the same time ensuring that the fiduciary management standards are not weakened,” said a paper Harmeling co-wrote with Alpha Oumar Kaloga, a member of the Guinean delegation at the UNFCCC talks.

But a contentious issue is still outstanding: the criteria on which decisions are made as to which project gets the money first. There have been heated debates at various UNFCCC talks on how to assess the extent to which individual developing countries are vulnerable to climate change, allowing a fair allocation of funds.

It was easy to allocate funds to the projects in Senegal and Honduras as they were the only fully-developed proposals on the table, said Levaggi. Harmeling believes it would be better to allocate money regionally as it is not clear that every developing country will submit a project.

Munich Re sees strong indication of climate change

Floods in central Europe, wildfires in Russia, widespread flooding in Pakistan. The number and scale of weather-related natural catastrophe losses in the first nine months of 2010 was exceptionally high. Two months ahead of the World Climate Summit scheduled for 29 November to 10 December in Cancún, Mexico, Munich Re emphasises the probability of a link between the increasing number of weather extremes and climate change. In the run-up to the summit, Munich Re will focus attention on this issue with a series of communications on natural catastrophes, climate change and potential solutions. Research facts and findings are available for download in an electronic press folder .

Globally, 2010 has been the warmest year since records began over 130 years ago, the ten warmest during that period all falling within the last 12 years. The warmer atmosphere and higher sea temperatures are having significant effects. Prof. Peter Höppe, Head of Munich Re’s Geo Risks Research/Corporate Climate Centre: “It’s as if the weather machine had changed up a gear. Unless binding carbon reduction targets stay on the agenda, future generations will bear the consequences.”

Munich Re recorded a total of 725 weather-related natural hazard events with significant losses from January to September 2010, the second-highest figure recorded for the first nine months of the year since 1980. Some 21,000 people lost their lives, 1,760 in Pakistan alone, up to one-fifth of which was flooded for several weeks. Overall losses due to weather-related natural catastrophes from January to September came to more than US$ 65bn and insured losses to US$ 18bn. Despite producing 13 named storms, the hurricane season has been relatively benign to date, the hurricanes having pursued favourable courses.

Munich Re’s natural catastrophe database, the most comprehensive of its kind in the world, shows a marked increase in the number of weather-related events. For instance, globally there has been a more than threefold increase in loss-related floods since 1980 and more than double the number of windstorm natural catastrophes, with particularly heavy losses as a result of Atlantic hurricanes.

The rise in natural catastrophe losses is primarily due to socio-economic factors. In many countries, populations are rising, and more and more people moving into exposed areas. At the same time, greater prosperity is leading to higher property values. Nevertheless, it would seem that the only plausible explanation for the rise in weather-related catastrophes is climate change. The view that weather extremes are more frequent and intense due to global warming coincides with the current state of scientific knowledge as set out in the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report.

There are at present insufficient data on many weather risks and regions to permit statistically backed assertions regarding the link with climate change. However, there is evidence that, as a result of warming, events associated with severe windstorms, such as thunderstorms, hail and cloudbursts, have become more frequent in parts of the USA, southwest Germany and other regions. The number of very severe tropical cyclones is also increasing. One direct result of warming is an increase in heatwaves such as that experienced in Russia this summer. There are also indications of a higher incidence of atmospheric conditions causing air mass formation on the north side of the Alps and low-lying mountain ranges, a phenomenon which can result in floods. Heavy rain and flash floods are affecting not only people living close to rivers but also those who live well away from traditionally flood-prone areas. Although climate change can no longer be halted, even with the help of very ambitious schemes, it can still be curbed.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Haiti Earthquake Reconstruction: Knowledge Notes from DRM Global Expert Team for the Government of H

The devastating Haiti Earthquake of January 2010 created major challenges on a variety of fronts.
To support the Government of Haiti’s decision-making on the recovery and reconstruction operations, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) decided to make available expert advice and global best practices to the Government by mobilizing the World Bank Global Expert Team (GET) (and also procuring external expertise where in-house expertise was not available) to prepare Knowledge/Good Practice Notes on ten identified, ‘burning’ post-disaster recovery and reconstruction issues in a time-bound manner.
These knowledge notes covered a number of key sectors including: Building Seismic Safety Assessment; Debris Management; Environmental and Social Assessment; Experience with Post Disaster Income Support Programs; Land Tenure; Management of Recovery Managing Post-Disaster Aid; Rebuild or Relocate; Transitional Shelter, and; Helping Women and Children to Recover and Build Resilient Communities.

Download Full report

A Hanoï, les gratte-ciel dévorent les rizières

La cité qui résista aux bombardiers américains pendant la guerre du Vietnam s’ouvre aux promoteurs immobiliers et à leurs projets pharaoniques
Par Xavier Monthéard

Dans le bureau bleu ciel se côtoient plans futuristes, photographies de réalisations, écran vidéo high-tech. L’architecte Hoàng Huu Phê fait montre d’une grande ardeur pour persuader que l’avenir de Hanoï réside dans le développement urbain tous azimuts. « Certains, au gouvernement, perçoivent toujours la ville comme une entité administrative. Heureusement, cette vision passéiste décline. Nous devons construire une capitale attractive et technologique, à vocation internationale. Les Américains ont bien fait surgir Las Vegas d’un désert ! »

M. Phê est un homme dont les vues comptent. La petite soixantaine énergique, il dirige le département recherche-développement de Vinaconex, la plus grande société de construction d’Etat vietnamienne, emblématique des entreprises florissantes de l’après-communisme. Il dit se moquer comme d’une guigne des bulles immobilières : « La spéculation, nous devons nous en servir comme d’une force motrice souterraine. C’est notre volonté qui protégera cette ville du laisser-faire, lequel mène au cosmopolitisme de Bangkok ou de Manille, que vous pouvez appeler occidentalisation. J’essaie d’utiliser les mécanismes du marché pour que mon rêve devienne réalité (1). »

A l’été 2009, le magazine en ligne Smart Travel Asia a classé Hanoï sixième ville du continent pour le shopping, derrière Hongkong ou Singapour, mais devant Shanghaï, Tokyo, Pékin, Séoul… Le Vietnam est en vogue. En 2008, les projets immobiliers y ont attiré plus de 28 milliards de dollars, soit près de la moitié des investissements directs étrangers (2). Dans les grandes cités, les prix du foncier flambent. Est-ce bien là le pays meurtri par la guerre dont Noam Chomsky disait en 1990 qu’ayant « souffert d’un sort qui n’a pas d’équivalent dans l’histoire européenne depuis la Peste noire », il lui faudrait « un siècle avant de pouvoir s’en remettre, en supposant que ce soit possible (3) » ?

” Nous devons nous servir
de la spéculation comme
d’une force souterraine “

En mai 2008, après six mois de délibérations, le premier ministre Nguyên Tân Dung obtenait que la capitale absorbe la province de Hà Tây, ainsi que quelques communes limitrophes (voir la carte). Le 1er août 2008, la superficie de Hanoï a donc… triplé. L’agglomération dépasse les 3 300 kilomètres carrés. Selon Laurent Pandolfi, de l’Institut des métiers de la ville, « même si cette décision a été très rapide, très politique, elle ne manque pas de logique. Elle répond à une démarche de métropolisation et coïncide avec de grands projets structurants qui se situent au-delà de l’ancien territoire de Hanoï, comme la construction des périphériques routiers ou de lignes de métro ».

Dans la foulée, le gouvernement a attribué au consortium américano-coréen Perkins Eastman - Posco Engineering and Construction - Jina (PPJ) l’élaboration d’un nouveau plan d’urbanisme, le « Hanoi Master Plan to 2030 and Vision to 2050 ». Il doit boucler courant 2010 l’étude de plus de 700 projets, résidentiels et industriels. « Le délai est ridiculement court », estime un architecte du ministère de la construction qui tient à garder l’anonymat. « Il aurait fallu au minimum trois ans de travail. Plus de 500 réunions sont prévues. C’est intenable. Nous n’aurons pas de vrai plan, juste une liste de propositions mal coordonnées. »

Que signifie ce remue-ménage autour du « grand Hanoï » ? Pour le comprendre, il faut revenir une vingtaine d’années en arrière. Le Vietnam mène depuis 1986 une politique d’ouverture économique (doi moi, « renouveau »), à la chinoise. En 1990, le Parti communiste reconnaît la famille comme « entité économique autonome, de production et d’entreprise », et prévoit de lui allouer des terres. C’est le début de la décollectivisation. La loi votée par l’Assemblée nationale en 1993 accorde aux particuliers un droit d’usage des sols, avec des baux renouvelables de longue durée (quinze ans à l’origine) : ils peuvent être loués, vendus, transmis par héritage, etc. Toutefois, l’Etat garde une possibilité de préemption, en théorie pour s’opposer à la captation des terres par la bourgeoisie urbaine. Et d’importantes réserves foncières restent dans le giron du parti, de l’armée et des organisations de masse (Front de la patrie, syndicats…) communistes.

En 1993, la valeur marchande des terrains était faible. Mais avec des exportations nationales multipliées par quatre en quinze ans, un taux de croissance élevé et 10 000 entreprises étrangères actives sur le territoire, les anciennes rizières se métamorphosent en mines d’or. L’héritage de l’histoire — par exemple, l’attribution de confortables villas coloniales aux familles s’étant illustrées durant la guerre contre les Américains, ou de très vastes domaines pour les militaires — gêne les aspirations mercantiles. Les promoteurs exigent des terrains qu’une ville saturée ne peut plus offrir.

Pour ses partisans, comme M. Phê, le développement du « grand Hanoï » passe par la constitution d’un réseau de villes satellites. On désenclaverait ainsi les zones montagneuses de l’Ouest tout en réduisant la densité de population de la capitale ; on connecterait celle-ci aux flux du commerce transnational tout en la dotant de lotissements résidentiels modernes. Un nom résume leur conception : Splendora.

On n’a pas encore osé toucher
aux pierres tombales
des cimetières villageois

Ce complexe en construction a posé ses fondations à An Khanh nord, dans l’ex-province de Hà Tây. Une autoroute stratégique y passera pour aboutir à la future technopole de Hòa Lac, à 30 kilomètres du centre-ville. Là doit être édifiée une Silicon Valley à la vietnamienne. L’Université nationale de Hanoï y sera transférée et dotée d’un campus. Des secteurs à haute valeur technologique ajoutée, « verte » de surcroît, s’y implanteront.

Pour le moment, autour d’An Khanh, c’est le temps de la récolte. Les paysans fauchent le riz à la serpe autour de l’autoroute en travaux ; les enfants mènent les buffles à la badine ; chevaux et chèvres circulent parmi les blocs de béton du chantier. Des panneaux signalent les complexes résidentiels, à divers degrés d’avancement : Splendora, mais aussi les Tricon Towers singapouriennes, trois tours ultramodernes de 44 étages, comptant 732 condominiums, avec piscines et bains à remous… On n’a pas encore osé toucher aux pierres tombales des cimetières villageois. Incongrues, elles parsèment d’éclats de deuil la mer verte des champs. C’est l’âme de la nation vietnamienne traditionnelle, celle des rizières, celle de la pauvreté endémique aussi, qui reflue.

Les clips vidéo promotionnels des sociétés immobilières, eux, présentent en 3D de grands ensembles, des espaces verts, des lacs. Les traversant, des voies express permettent une circulation fluide vers un habitat mixte : gratte-ciel et immeubles de petites dimensions mariés à des maisons individuelles. A l’écran défilent des scènes de courses sereines dans les hypermarchés, loin des tumultes du centre ou de la rusticité des faubourgs. « Mais voyez-vous des crèches, des écoles, des équipements sanitaires ? », fait remarquer le professeur Pham Van Cu, géographe à l’Université nationale de Hanoï. « Où sont passés les gens, où est l’activité économique ? Dans ces projets, c’est l’intérêt des investisseurs qui prime. L’Etat s’ampute de ressources, les services sont privatisés et les personnes modestes deviennent dépendantes des sociétés de services. Dans ce monde tertiaire, des riches paient d’autres riches : eux seuls y gagnent. »

Tous ces projets visent en effet une classe sociale aisée, celle des 10 % de ménages qui concentrent 30 % du revenu national. Ceux qui, le dimanche, aiment à flâner autour du grand lac de l’Ouest, le long d’une promenade aux faux airs de Riviera qui s’étire sur 17 kilomètres. Les promoteurs escomptent qu’ils quitteront le centre-ville pour des appartements plus spacieux et le calme de la « banlieue », au sens américain du terme.

Problème : entre ces lotissements, autoroutes et complexes industriels resteront encastrées des terres agricoles, privées d’accès à l’eau d’irrigation. En outre, les nouveaux ensembles posent leurs fondations sur des remblais surélevés par rapport aux villages, ce qui accentue les risques d’inondation en contrebas. Or il pleut beaucoup, sous ces latitudes de mousson, dans cette plaine alluviale très densément peuplée… Les protocoles qui régissent la construction des plates-formes urbaines imposent certes aux promoteurs l’aménagement de systèmes de drainage. Mais qui y veillera, alors que l’Etat se désengage au point de transférer aux investisseurs l’aménagement du territoire ? En échange de la construction de l’infrastructure routière, il leur concède par exemple les terrains contigus. Et délègue même aux entreprises l’expropriation des terres.

Transformer des communes
agricoles en banlieues bourgeoises

Tel fut le cas à Hòa Muc. Quand, en 1997, cet ancien district rural est reclassé administrativement en arrondissement urbain de Hanoï, la valeur du terrain monte en flèche. Trois ans plus tard, les pouvoirs publics entament la construction du lotissement de Nhân Chính - Trung Hòa, via la société Vinaconex. « Hòa Muc était l’un de ces nombreux villages qui combinent l’agriculture et l’artisanat de métier. Ici, c’était la brique, raconte la sociologue canadienne Danielle Labbé. Quand l’Etat a construit Nhân Chính - Truong Hòa, il a préempté les terres agricoles des villageois, en leur laissant leur maison et un petit lopin pour cultiver. Via le comité populaire [municipalité] et les organisations de masse, l’Etat a négocié le montant des expropriations. Les gens savaient que les villageois qui, dans d’autres nouveaux arrondissements urbains, avaient résisté n’avaient pas été bien traités ; donc ils ont cédé. A partir de 2003, l’Etat a confié l’expropriation au développeur privé. Il y a eu des promesses d’embauche, de reclassement. Généralement non tenues. A Hòa Muc, l’indemnisation, quoique très en deçà de la valeur du marché, a été décente. Mais ailleurs, les conflits se sont durcis, et on est dans des situations de blocage. »

Citadin d’origine, le comité populaire de Hanoï est brusquement confronté à des espaces et des problématiques qu’il ne connaît guère — ceux des districts ruraux. Les risques sociaux sont considérables. « Passer du rural à l’urbain est toujours chaotique, surtout quand cela se fait vite, sans formation, souligne la chercheuse. Il est très difficile de retrouver un emploi. Et on parle là d’un village situé à 4 kilomètres du centre-ville, qui lui était lié depuis des siècles. Qu’en sera-t-il pour ceux de la périphérie lointaine ? »

La déstabilisation des espaces périurbains menace de déstructurer le centre-ville marchand, dont la prospérité reposait sur un va-et-vient continuel avec une ceinture périphérique dense — agricole, artisanale et industrielle —, au moins depuis le XVIIe siècle (4). A partir de la fin des années 1980, la reconstitution de cette organisation traditionnelle brisée par la période communiste et par la guerre a permis à la ville de se relever.

« Mais voyez-vous des crèches,
des écoles, des équipements sanitaires ?
Où sont passés les gens ? »

Emblématique de cette fonction pulmonaire, le quartier dit « des trente-six rues et corporations » doit sa renommée à sa vitalité commerciale. Au sein d’un enchevêtrement de constructions profondes où s’imbriquent les cours intérieures et les étages cachés, tout un flot de marchandises déborde des façades des habitations, surchargées de fioritures, de balustres et de couleurs. Chaque rue a sa spécialité. Celle du café et des torréfactions ; des équipements de bureau ; de la pharmacopée traditionnelle où se mêlent épices — senteurs d’anis, de gingembre… — et ingrédients médicinaux. Une autre sent la fripe, ou encore l’acier fraîchement coupé.

La restauration bouscule le négoce. En dépit du bruit et de la promiscuité, les Hanoïens ne peuvent se passer des innombrables « restaurants de poussière », où l’on prend place sur des tabourets miniatures pour être au plus près du sol. La rue bourdonne continuellement. Elle est à qui la prend, la frontière entre trottoir et route demeurant purement formelle. Encore peu nombreuses, les voitures disputent aux milliers de motos chaque mètre de chaussée.

L’émergence de micro-unités familiales travaillant dans les services ou la vente de détail compense pour l’instant le recul structurel du nombre de fonctionnaires et d’agriculteurs. Le revenu mensuel moyen y est estimé à 2,4 millions de dongs (environ 90 euros). Une enquête portant sur plusieurs milliers de ménages vient d’établir que « le secteur informel est le premier employeur à Hanoï (30 % de l’emploi total) (...) et opère comme une économie d’enclave, relativement coupée des canaux normaux du commerce (5) ».

Il peut s’agir de cette vieille marchande ambulante qui trottine pour ne pas ployer sous le poids de sa palanche. De ces deux femmes passant à vélo, majestueuses, avec leur chargement de caramboles et de pommes cannelle. Ou bien de Qûyen. Qûyen, 26 ans, est moto-taxi, une profession nécessaire dans une ville où les transports publics balbutient. Il passe dix heures par jour dans une atmosphère surpolluée et dangereuse, étant donné l’interprétation très personnelle que font les conducteurs hanoïens du code de la route.

A chaque pause, il s’octroie une — une seule —profonde bouffée de pipe, un objet ouvragé long d’une cinquantaine de centimètres. La pochette de mauvais tabac ne coûte que 3 000 dongs (6). Mais, comme tout, elle a augmenté. « Je parviens toujours à faire deux repas par jour, mais je dois faire attention. Ma compagne, manucure, n’est pas plus riche que moi. Nous n’avons pas assez d’argent pour le mariage, alors je fume moins, bois moins. Mais il me faudra des années pour réunir la somme nécessaire. »

Pour Qûyen, le principal problème, plus encore que l’inflation qui renchérit le coût des biens de première nécessité, c’est le logement. Le sien consiste en un réduit de 10mètres carrés qu’il loue près de 1 million de dongs par mois (40 euros), eau et électricité comprises. Né en province, il n’a guère d’espoir de trouver mieux : tout est pris par les Hanoïens de souche. Même casse-tête pour Mlle Lon. D’embarras, elle baisse la tête en parlant : sa situation sociale contraste trop avec ses espoirs professionnels. Alors qu’elle achève sa thèse de sociologie, elle doit toujours partager une colocation, avec douche et toilettes sur le palier. « J’ai suivi dix ans d’études, j’effectue des recherches pour un prestigieux institut, mais rien ne se libère. Au contraire. Depuis deux ans, on ne trouve plus de logements. Les internats universitaires sont bondés. Il est anormal que le gouvernement ne soutienne pas davantage les étudiants. »

Selon Mme Nguyen Thi Thieng, directrice adjointe du département population de l’Université nationale d’économie, « les études font ressortir que les migrants s’établissent à présent dans les quartiers périphériques, alors que, jusqu’en 2007, ils se regroupaient dans les districts centraux de Ba Dình et Hoàn Kiêm. Ils n’ont plus accès au logement dans les quartiers où ils travaillent ». L’ironie veut que, parfois, les anciens paysans dépossédés de leurs terres agricoles se reconvertissent en logeurs de fortune : comme le souligne la sociologue Labbé, « les habitants de Hòa Muc ont construit sur le lopin qui leur reste des bâtiments simples qu’ils louent aux étudiants et aux travailleurs n’ayant pas les moyens de se loger dans le centre-ville. C’est un très gros marché ».

Car la demande s’accroît, au moment même où les projets des promoteurs verrouillent l’accès au foncier en provoquant des hausses de prix. Et ce n’est pas fini. L’agglomération compte désormais, selon le dernier recensement décennal (avril 2009), près de 6,5 millions d’habitants — autant que tout le Laos voisin !

« Pour la réduction de la pauvreté, la progression du Vietnam est spectaculaire. C’est tout simplement la plus rapide du monde, plus encore que celle de la Chine ! De 58 % de personnes sous le seuil de pauvreté en 1993, on est passé à 16 % en 2006, et la tendance se poursuit », s’enthousiasmait Martin Rama, économiste en chef à la Banque mondiale, lors d’un colloque organisé à Hanoï en septembre 2009 (7). Mme Nguyen Nga, qui dirige une galerie, la Maison des arts, après avoir travaillé vingt ans dans l’humanitaire et les projets de développement économique, porte, elle, un jugement plus dur : « Pour bien comprendre Hanoï, il faut garder en mémoire les années 1980, leur misère. En regardant les enfants, je me disais qu’ils apprenaient l’inégalité avec la faim, qu’ils l’incorporaient. Et c’est ce qui s’est passé. Ces enfants ont 20 ans à présent, et n’ont connu que le chacun pour soi. Ils veulent leur part de possessions matérielles, mais leur sensibilité est atrophiée, leurs rêves sont appauvris. »

Le temps des clivages
idéologiques semble bien loin…

Il se dit qu’actuellement, en l’an 4646 du calendrier traditionnel, les gâteaux de l’hôtel Sheraton font les meilleurs des petits cadeaux qui servent pour tout : enterrements, mariages, affaires… Finalement, trente-cinq ans après la guerre, les Américains réussiraient-ils à conquérir les cœurs et les esprits vietnamiens ? Le temps des clivages idéologiques est loin, en tout cas. Le dollar est le bienvenu, et constitue même une seconde monnaie. Le nationalisme, lui, délaissant son héritage communiste, en revient aux sources les plus traditionnelles. Selon l’historien Nguyên Thê Anh, professeur émérite à l’Ecole pratique des hautes études, « d’une certaine façon le pays retrouve des manières de faire du temps de l’ancienne monarchie. Particulièrement pour ce qui est de la structure de gouvernance. La caste dirigeante, peu importe son étiquette, est comparable à un mandarinat autoproclamé, les vertus confucianistes en moins. Le peuple, lui, renoue avec les cultes anciens ».

Près du lac Hoàn Kiêm, au cœur de Hanoï, un panneau lumineux décompte les jours avant le 10 octobre 2010. A cette date, la ville fêtera très officiellement ses 1 000 ans. Les cérémonies s’annoncent grandioses. Deux dragons végétaux — hommage au premier nom de la capitale, Thang Long, la « ville du dragon qui s’élève » — encadrent la statue de l’empereur Ly Thái Tô (974-1028). Par ces réalisations symboliques, le Parti communiste vietnamien enracine la plus ancienne ville du pays dans un récit national consensuel, et met en valeur l’épaisseur historique de Hanoï, unique parmi les capitales du Sud-Est asiatique (8).

Non loin, un groupe d’ouvriers migrants venu de province s’occupe de la restauration d’un temple du XVIIe siècle. En dépit de la boue et du bruit incessant de la capitale, leur campement de fortune a trouvé son centre : le génie du lieu, un héros populaire divinisé. Des générations de squatteurs l’avaient laissé intact. Fleurs, fruits, plats cuisinés et bâtonnets d’encens s’entassent à présent à ses pieds.

(1) Pour un développement de ces conceptions, cf. Hoàng Huu Phê, « North An Khanh satellite town and the search for a suitable urban structure for Hanoi », Journal of Construction, Hanoï, août 2008, et « Urban change from the individual standpoint : An Asian perspective », dans Peter Hall (sous la dir. de), Urban 21 : Future Urban Lifestyles, Berlin, 2000.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Storm kills five, adds to homeless misery in Haiti

* Storm damages or destroys 5,878 tents, official says
* At least 50 people injured
* More than 1 million still living in quake camps

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Sept 25 (Reuters) - A storm with high winds killed five people, including two children, as it tore through thousands of tents housing people left homeless by Haiti’s massive Jan. 12 earthquake, a senior official said on Saturday.

The tornado-like storm on Friday afternoon toppled or shredded 5,878 of the tents and tarpaulins in homeless camps and makeshift shelters across the chaotic capital Port-au-Prince, Haitian Civil Protection Director Alta Jean-Baptiste told Reuters.

The fast-passing storm toppled numerous trees and power poles. Jean-Baptiste said the five people killed by debris included a girl and a boy.

At least 50 people were injured, she said.

Eight months after the magnitude 7 quake that shattered large parts of Port-au-Prince, killing up to 300,000 people, the international aid community has faced criticism that efforts to clear rubble and relocate survivors from makeshift camps have been slow to materialize.

More than 1 million people left homeless by one of the world’s worst disasters are still living in the camps and critics say reconstruction efforts have barely gotten under way.

Friday’s storm did not appear to be directly related to this year’s highly active Atlantic hurricane season or Tropical Storm Matthew, which hit Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast on Friday afternoon.

But weather across the Caribbean is typically unsettled this time of year as cold high pressure systems begin coming down from Canada and the U.S. mainland.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Disasters: Reducing the risk in slums

NAIROBI, 21 September 2010 (IRIN) - The disproportionately high risk of disaster faced by a billion slum-dwellers across the world could be significantly reduced with prudent investment, states a new report.

“We cannot stop urbanization but we shouldn’t be naïve; a trend does not mean destiny, disasters can be prevented,” Matthias Schmale, the Under-Secretary-General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said in Nairobi at the global launch of the 2010 edition of the World Disasters Report.

Schmale said solutions for disaster risk reduction and preparedness “need to be found in dialogue with the affected people; moving from the bottom upwards”.

The World Disasters Report 2010 focuses on urban risk, with the IFRC warning that 2.57 billion urban dwellers living in low- and middle-income nations are vulnerable to unacceptable levels of risk fuelled by rapid urbanization, poor local governance, population growth, poor health services and a rising tide of urban violence.

The estimated one billion urban dwellers now living in crowded slums will rise to 1.4 billion by 2020, the report says, adding that Africa, which is often considered predominantly rural, “now has an urban population (412 million) larger than North America (286 million)”.

“Urban is the new rural,” Schmale said. “We know that it is better to give seeds than food… we should invest more in preparedness as shown by the recent disasters in Haiti and Chile where the magnitude was worse in Chile but the impact was worse in Haiti.”

According to IFRC, urban poverty and disaster risk are often closely intertwined and the links between them will be increased by climate change.

“In any given year, more than 50,000 people can die as a result of earthquakes and 100 million can be affected by floods and the worst-affected are most often vulnerable city dwellers,” IFRC said.

Leadership

James Kisia, deputy secretary-general of the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS), said there was a need to rethink the definition of social development.

“The average African man in a rural area will not live in a single room with his children but this is increasingly becoming the norm in informal settlements in urban areas; we seem to have left such social issues at the mercy of economic development,” he said. “Leadership cannot be left to the government alone, we must partner together to create an enabling environment for social development.”

Good urban governance is a recurring theme in the World Disasters Report 2010, with the IFRC stressing that it is essential to ensure that people are empowered and engaged in the development of their urban environment and are “not marginalized or left exposed to disasters, climate change, violence and ill health”.

IFRC quoted David Satterthwaite, lead writer of the report and senior fellow at the International Institute of Environment and Development (IIED), as saying: “The crisis of urban poverty, rapidly growing informal settlements and growing numbers of urban disasters arises from the failure of governments to adapt their institutions to urbanization.

“It stems also in part from the failure of aid agencies to help them [governments] to do so - most aid agencies have inadequate or no urban policies and have long been reluctant to support urban development at a sufficient scale.”

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Philippines strengthen disaster preparedness through SMS technology

Southern Leyte - To be better prepared for future disasters, some leading corporations of the country took time and poured in logistics in Southern Leyte to strengthen disaster preparedness and response particularly in its communication needs.

The World Bank, Smart Communications and the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) in coordination with the Southern Leyte provincial government launched a P10 Million project, Strengthening Disaster Preparedness of Southern Leyte thru SMS Technology an SMS innovation for disaster preparedness.

The project’s innovation has made it to the World Bank Development Marketplace in Washington D.C., where it won together with 24 other projects from among the 1,700 entries from around the world.

The SMS innovations will use the SMART SMS technology to allow for faster, accurate information gathering and dissemination on climate change, multiple hazards, contingency plans and responses.

The fast communication system is anchored on an Infoboard a web-based information system and Smart Community SIMs, the local Disaster Risk Reduction Committees and the Provincial Disaster Management Office (PDMO) where it can receive feedback, comments, suggestions and queries from residents and officials, send broadcast messages, advisories and information to community and educate community on disaster preparedness.

It was further learned that residents can access guidelines and disaster preparedness information anywhere and anytime.

The project will initially target selected municipalities such as Maasin City, Libagon, Malitbog, San Francisco, Hinunangan, Liloan, Anahawan, Pintuyan, San Ricardo, Tomas Oppus, all of Southern Leyte.

Governor Damian Mercado signed the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) together with Ramon Isberto of Smart Communications, Chris Pablo of the World Bank and Rafael Lopa of Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP).

Additional information
http://www.pia.gov.ph/?m=12&r=&y=&mo=&fi=p100915.htm&no=87

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Analysis: Climate change may add to disaster death tolls

(Reuters) - Natural disasters are tending to kill fewer people but climate change may add to the toll by unleashing more extreme weather and causing after-effects such as disease and malnutrition, experts say.

Better warnings of cyclones or heat waves and an easing of poverty in developing nations in the past few decades have made many nations better prepared for weather extremes, helping to curb death tolls.

“In terms of actually saving lives we are doing well,” said Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, a senior expert at the United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO).

“But that’s no guarantee for the future as we see the hazard increasing, particularly things like heat stress where we may not be very well prepared,” he told Reuters.

Rising temperatures can aggravate the aftermath of disasters, as well as causing creeping changes from higher temperatures such as disruptions to food production.

“Climate change just adds another reason why we should be getting on with controlling malaria, diarrhea and dealing with the problem of malnutrition,” said Campbell-Lendrum. “Those are the big challenges.

U.N. studies project global warming will cause more droughts, wildfires, heat waves, floods, mudslides and rising sea levels—all threats for an increasing human population set to reach 9 billion by 2050 from 6.8 billion now.

And it is often the after-effects of natural disasters that are the worst, in terms of extra deaths.

Deaths from extreme weather this year such as in Pakistan’s floods “are a warning that we need to renew efforts to bring climate change under control,” said Andrew Haines, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“There is an increased death rate from indirect causes—people become impoverished, so child death rates that are not normally counted rise,” Haines said.

“There might be a substantial under-estimate in the deaths,” he said. Climate change would add to the damaging after-effects of natural disasters.

BIGGER RISK FROM DISEASE
More than 1,750 people have died in Pakistan’s floods but millions more are at risk of disease. At least 54 people died from wildfires in Russia in July and August that drove up world grain prices—threatening malnutrition for the poor.

The WHO will issue a report next year updating an initial 2003 study that estimated an extra 150,000 people were dying every year from global warming—mainly from malnutrition, diarrhea and malaria.

It projected that the toll was set to double by 2030. Campbell-Lendrum declined to predict the new numbers.

“The short-term response is disaster preparedness” to help save lives, said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme, pointing to successes in Bangladesh and Cuba in limiting deaths from storms in recent decades.

In Bangladesh, for instance, advance warning and shelters have helped. Cyclone Bhola killed 300,000 people in 1970, while a 1991 cyclone killed 139,000, according to the EM-DAT disaster database. In 2007, Cyclone Sidr killed 3,500 people.

Alongside investments in flood defenses in Pakistan, or better information about how to cope with heat waves, Steiner said, the long-term solution had to be cuts in greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels.

“Ultimately it is addressing the fundamental drivers of environmental change which will either lead the world to have increasingly to invest in disaster management or development,” he told Reuters. “That is the choice of this generation.”

Campbell-Lendrum said the WHO’s 2003 study may have under-estimated the impact of inland flooding, such as in Pakistan, and of heat waves such as in Russia. Up to 70,000 people died in Europe in 2003 from a heat wave.

He said climate change was an argument to bolster basic health services in poor nations, where 830 million people suffer malnutrition and are most at risk.

A changing climate also has both bad and good effects—more people are under threat from heat waves, for instance, but some elderly people also survive better with milder winters.

Other studies have linked warming to the spread of ticks, bearing encephalitis, in northern Europe. One hinted at a higher rate of suicides among Australian farmers during droughts, according to the U.N. panel of climate scientists.

The EM-DAT database shows deaths from natural disasters have fallen from about 500,000 a year a century ago to below 50,000 most recent years. The numbers include disasters unrelated to climate change such as tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. The worst recent year was 2004, with the Indian Ocean tsunami.

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Catastrophes naturelles en série : la faute au réchauffement climatique ?

Les événements climatiques extrêmes comme la canicule russe, une mousson indienne dévastatrice au Pakistan et en Inde et des gigantesques inondations à travers la Chine, démontrant une nouvelle fois, et de manière dramatique, la vulnérabilité des sociétés humaines devant les colères de la nature. Comme à chaque fois, nombreux sont ceux qui relient ces événements au réchauffement planétaire.

Les signes de la poursuite du réchauffement engagé depuis un demi-siècle sont nombreux. La température moyenne de la planète montre, selon les relevés et analyses de l’équipe de James Hansen au Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NASA), que les six premiers mois de l’année 2010 détiennent le record de chaleur depuis cent trente ans. La hausse du niveau marin global, mesuré par satellite depuis 1992 avec une précision diabolique, se poursuit inexorablement. En cause ? La dilatation des eaux de surface du fait de leur réchauffement et la fonte des glaciers continentaux (montagnes et calottes polaires). La banquise arctique va, pour la quatrième année consécutive, passer sous la barre des 5 millions de km² d’ici quelques jours. Alors qu’elle n’était jamais descendue sous cette limite entre 1978 et 2006, la période où nous disposons d’observations quotidiennes par satellites.

La faute au réchauffement planétaire ?

Pour la plupart des climatologues il est encore très difficile d’attribuer tel ou tel événement, surtout extrême, au changement en cours. D’ici quinze ou vingt ans, cela deviendra peut-être évident, mais à ce jour rien n’est encore sûr. En effet, seule la répétition accélérée des événements extrêmes signalera qu’ils trouvent l’origine de leur fréquence accrue dans le changement climatique. En revanche, les projections à plusieurs décennies montrent que les épisodes caniculaires seront plus fréquents, par exemple en Europe ou en Russie, au fur et à mesure que la température moyenne va croître. Ainsi, la canicule russe de 2010 préfigure donc des événements similaires plus fréquents d’ici quelques décennies.

Pour la mousson asiatique, les désaccords entre modélisations ne permettent pas encore d’arriver à une conclusion. Si certaines simulent des moussons asiatiques plus fortes dans l’avenir, avec des épisodes très intenses plus fréquents, d’autres ne parviennent pas aux mêmes résultats. Les progrès des modèles à représenter les phénomènes de convection atmosphérique et la puissance accrue des ordinateurs devraient permettre de savoir, d’ici quelques années, quelles seront les évolutions des moussons futures.

La canicule russe et l’intense mousson asiatique sont-elles liées ?

Cette apparente multiplication des événements à cours de ces derniers mois ne doit pas faire oublier qu’ils ont en fait la même origine. En effet, le blocage anticyclonique sur la Russie, la phase la Niña dans le Pacifique tropical et les températures élevées dans l’océan Indien se conjuguent pour provoquer cette mousson intense et les fortes pluies sur la Chine en contraignant la circulation atmosphérique. Pourtant, tout n’est pas compris dans cette année 2010, très “atypique”. Ainsi, les températures de surface très élevées de l’Atlantique tropical, au large de l’Afrique de l’Ouest, auraient dû provoquer une saison cyclonique exceptionnelle et une mousson africaine elle aussi très forte. Pour cette dernière cela n’a pas été encore observé et il faudra attendre début novembre pour faire le bilan de la saison cyclonique Atlantique.

Quelles leçons politiques tirer de ces épisodes climatiques ?

La principale semble être que la vulnérabilité des sociétés aux aléas climatiques reste très élevée, voire s’accroît. La canicule russe et ses conséquences diverses - incendies, pollution urbaine, chute de la production de céréales, mortalité en hausse dans les villes touchées - sont certes des conséquences directes de la sécheresse et des températures élevées, mais qui proviennent surtout d’une combinaison de ces facteurs naturels avec l’incapacité des sociétés à les prévenir et à y faire face. Les incendies des tourbières autour de Moscou sont également la conséquence de leur exploitation, comme les incendies de forêts sont à relier à leur mauvaise gestion.

Au Pakistan, l’explosion démographique s’est traduite par une urbanisation anarchique dans les zones inondables et donc au désastre de millions de sinistrés. Mais, l’exemple de la gestion du cyclone Katrina à la Nouvelle-Orléans a montré que les Etats-Unis n’étaient pas capables de gérer l’évacuation de 500 000 personnes de manière correcte. Il sera difficile de diminuer la vulnérabilité aux aléas climatique créée par des évolutions démographiques et économiques non maîtrisées. Même un pays riche comme la France n’arrive pas à s’interdire la construction en zones dangereuse et inondable. L’aide internationale d’urgence s’organise au Pakistan, mais les gouvernements sont encore incapables de développer une politique de prévention réelle. Les catastrophes risquent donc de se succéder.

Les épisodes de sécheresse en 2003 en Europe de l’Ouest, puis en 2007 en Australie ont joué un rôle important dans l’envolée des prix du blé et la crise alimentaire qu’elle a déclenchée. La question agricole met en lumière les connexions entre climat et géopolitique : la hausse brutale du prix du blé sur les marchés internationaux à la suite de la décision du Kremlin d’interdire l’exportation montre que ce sont des populations parmi les plus pauvres et pas directement touchées par l’événement climatique qui risquent d’en payer le prix le plus élevé. Cette exportation du choc climatique à longue distance montre à quel point la dépendance au marché international dans laquelle les politiques actuelles plongent certains pays pauvres peut se révéler dangereuse pour eux-mêmes et pour la stabilité des relations internationales. Surtout, insiste l’économiste, il faut se garder d’une vision abstraite du marché des denrées agricoles. La plupart des pays pauvres ne peuvent réagir à une hausse brutale des prix en réduisant leur consommation - obéissant ainsi à la théorie libérale en vigueur - sauf à mettre en péril la santé ou la survie des populations.

“Les conséquences du changement climatique ne feront qu’empirer”

En 2009, les catastrophes hydrologiques, parmi lesquelles les inondations, ont représenté 53 % du nombre total de catastrophes naturelles. Le nombre de cas déclarés catastrophes climatiques (températures extrêmes, sécheresses et incendies de forêt), était plus élevé en 2009 que l’année précédente, mais inférieur à la moyenne annuelle pour la période 2000-2008. Le nombre de personnes touchées par les catastrophes météorologiques tels que les typhons ont augmenté de 220 % par rapport à 2008. L’Asie a concentré en 2009 un peu plus de 40 % de ces phénomènes. Les zones côtières sont également très touchées.

Une étude réalisée par la Banque mondiale et Columbia university a identifié 86 pays à très fort potentiel de catastrophes qui pourraient subir des pertes économiques et humaines élevées en raison de cyclones, tremblements de terre, inondations, sécheresses, éruptions volcaniques ou encore glissements de terrain.

Selon le rapport d’évaluation sur la réduction des risques de catastrophes au niveau mondial (Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction), les risques de catastrophes augmentent le plus rapidement dans les pays à revenu moyen et faible dont les économies sont en forte croissance. Les pays en développement, les Etats fragiles et les petits États insulaires seraient les moins résistants à l’impact de ces catastrophes.

Pour la Banque mondiale, ‘‘les catastrophes naturelles devraient augmenter en termes de fréquence et de gravité en raison du changement climatique, de la croissance démographique, de l’urbanisation rapide et de la dégradation de l’environnement’‘. Un rapport conjoint du PNUD, de l’UNICEF, du FNUAP et du PAM, publié en janvier 2008 dresse le même constat : ‘‘la portée des catastrophes naturelles et l’augmentation de leur fréquence et gravité indiquent que les conséquences du changement climatique ne feront qu’empirer, notamment en raison de l’urbanisation rapide actuellement en cours’‘.

Auteur : CATastrophes NATurelles.net

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Bangladesh coastal residents at risk from lack of storm shelters

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AlertNet) - Elevated concrete storm shelters, built along Bangladesh’s coast, have over the decades dramatically reduced the once catastrophic number of people killed by cyclones in the low-lying country.

But population growth, poor maintenance of some of the existing shelters and a lack of funding means the country today has inadequate shelters to protect all 7.8 million Bangladeshis most at risk during cyclones, officials say.

With the monsoon season now underway, people living in disaster-prone coastal districts are worried that if cyclones or other large storm surges hit this year, they could carry huge costs in terms of lives and livelihoods.

“People are at high risk, especially those who live close to the sea. Until and unless adequate numbers of shelter centres are built, they will remain at risk,” said Mokhlesur Rahman, the nation’s disaster management secretary.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Disaster Management, the country’s 16 coastal districts have 2,853 storm shelter centres, 262 of which are now unusable. To adequately protect the coastal population, the country needs another 2,500 shelters, Rahman said.

“It is impossible to give them shelter with the small number of (existing) shelter centres. But we can’t build adequate centres due to lack of funding,” he said.

New shelters, capable of protecting hundreds of residents each, cost at least $285,000 per shelter, he said, and the government is turning to donor countries for assistance. So far, the country has raised enough funds to begin construction of 482 additional shelters, he said.

Storm shelter centres - large, elevated concrete structures built near the coast and often used day to day as schools or other public spaces - are an essential part of Bangladesh’s disaster preparedness, along with early warning systems.

SHELTERS THE ONLY OPTION

In a region where many people, particularly the poorest, live in flimsy one-story structures, the shelters offer the only real chance of surviving serious cyclones, tsunamis and other disasters.

Bangladesh’s worst-ever cyclone, in 1991, killed 138,000 people and left as many as 10 million homeless. But the death toll was far less than from a smaller storm in 1970 that killed 300,000 people before the storm shelter network was built.

Since that time, the shelters have dramatically reduced Bangladesh’s loss of life from cyclones. Cyclone Sidr in 2007 officially killed 3,447 people, though some aid agencies believe the number may have reached 5,000 to 10,000. Cyclone Aila, which hit southern Bangladesh in 2009, killed 300 people, destroyed the homes of about 87,000 people and wiped out 4,000 kilometres of roads and embankments, many of which are still being rebuilt.

Following the 1991 cyclone, a survey headed Jamilur Reza Chowdhury, a professor at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, recommended construction of 4,000 additional storm shelter centres. After Cyclone Sidr hit in 2007, that recommendation was reviewed by another committee headed by the then-secretary of the works ministry. That committee suggested the government construct at least 2,000 more shelter centres. But it has failed to do so, citing a lack of funds.

Residents of the coastal areas most in need of shelters say that failure is putting large numbers of lives at risk.

TOO FAR AWAY?

Ripon Hosen, a boatman from Chalkbara village in Satkhira district - one of the areas hardest hit by Cyclone Aila - said that the nearest shelter centre for his family is two kilometres from their house.

“On the day Aila struck, we ran to the elevated embankments, seeing that the water level was rising unusually. It was not possible for us to reach the shelter centre” in time, he said.

Others, who failed to reach the storm centres or the elevated embankments, “were washed away by the high tide,” he said.

The area, with a population of 42,000, currently has six shelter centres capable of holding about 3,000 people, Hosen said.

“We need at least 30 more shelter centres to accommodate all,” agreed G.M. Kamrul Islam, a small businessman in Khalishabunia village, in the same area. “Had Aila hit at night instead of in daylight, at least three-quarters of the people here might have been killed.”

On that day, “I never saw such water rising in my life. Though the meteorology office reported a danger signal of 12 (high on the scale), we did not take it seriously because we are familiar with storms from childhood. After Aila, now we become scared even if the danger signal is at 3 or 4,” he said.

Khulna and Satkhira districts, considered some of the country’s most storm-vulnerable areas, have only 77 and 65 working shelter centres respectively. Bhola, a large southern island, has 417 by comparison, government figures show.

Hasan Mehedi, chief executive of Humanitywatch, a non-profit rights group in Khulna, and someone who works with Aila victims, said the number of storm shelter centres in the region is very inadequate to meet emergency needs.

“None of the storm shelter centres can accommodate more than 500. Most of the coastal people in Khulna need shelter during disasters. So, the existing shelter centres can save only a very small portion of the total population of the region,” he said.

Some of the shelters now in place also are suffering from age and lack of repair.

Rashid Ahmed, a villager in Bashkhali sub-district under the Chittagong district, said the storm shelter centre in the Kadamrasul area has developed several large cracks and become unusable after it was not repaired.

He estimated that of 116 storm shelter centres in the area, 60 were not functioning effectively because of lack of maintenance.

Ahmed said that the lack of shelters threatened around 600,000 people in the sub-district. About 42,000 people there were killed during the devastating 1991 cyclone.

Saturday, September 04, 2010

Crime adds to misery for Pakistan’s flood victims

* Donated aid being traded for cash, goods
* Shopkeepers say aid officials complicit
* Displaced flood victims return home to burglaries

MEHMOOD KOT, Pakistan, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Crime and the sale of donated aid supplies are undermining the aid effort for Pakistan’s flood victims. [ID:nSGE68300V]

In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s provincial capital Peshawar, flour bags and tins of cooking oil bearing the logos of international aid agencies like the World Food Prgramme and USAID are openly on sale.

“We bought them from the victims,” said shopkeeper Abdul Ghafoor, who owns a shop in Peshawar’s Gur Mandi. “They get money and buy something else which they need more.”

“It cannot happen without officials’ involvement,” said another shopkeeper, Rahimullah Khan. “Victims cannot bring a truck full of supplies here.”

One Reuters reporter saw flour being unloaded in a market from a truck labelled “Relief Goods for Flood Affected People, from Islamic Relief”.

The goods are then sold at cheaper prices than usual.

“I can save 300 Pakistani rupees per 50 kg bag of flour. A customer prefers to buy it because it’s better quality and a lower price,” said flour dealer Najeeb Ahmed Khan.

Government officials are attempting to tackle the situation.

District authorities have raided and sealed two warehouses where stolen aid supplies were found, and made two arrests.

“We have formed a committee to check these illegal activities, but it’s sad it’s happening,” said district government official Siraj Ahmed.

Further south in Punjab, villagers say people living outside flood-affected areas have stolen from houses abandoned by flood victims.

Rana Farmanullah, a 27-year-old villager in Mehmood Kot, said robbers arrived on boats to loot the villagers’ belongings.

“They took away everything,” he said. “They were taking valuables and electrical equipment. They stole washing machines, standing fans, refrigerators, small electrical devices, and jewellery.”

To the north-east, in the town of Bhakkar on the banks of a swollen Indus River, fisherman said they were removing valuable components from boat engines, worried they could be stolen.