Disasters in Asia and the Pacific: 2015 Year in Review

In 2015, Asia-Pacific continued to be the world’s most disaster prone region.

160 disasters were reported in the region, accounting for 47 per cent of the world’s 344 disasters. The region bore the brunt of large scale catastrophic disasters with over 16,000 fatalities — more than a two-fold increase since 2014. South Asia accounted for a staggering 64 per cent of total global fatalities — the majority was attributed to the 7.6 magnitude earthquake that struck Nepal in April which caused 8,790 deaths. Asia and the Pacific incurred more than US$ 45.1 billion in economic damage in 2015 and even higher indirect losses. These numbers, however, are gross underestimates as there is no systematic assessment of the cost of all disasters that struck the region, especially slow-onset disasters such as droughts, heat waves, forest fires and haze.

The Disasters in Asia and the Pacific: 2015 Year in Review warns that the region’s burgeoning cities may not be adequately equipped to tackle urban disasters that occur more frequently and with greater intensity. Over 700 million people in the region live in cities at ‘extreme’ or ‘high’ disaster risk, and by 2030 this number could reach one billion. Rapid population expansion and the resulting depletion of ecological buffers such as wetlands and water bodies are a significant concern, says the report. It further notes that in many big cities in Asia-Pacific much of the infrastructure is outdated and built without adequate attention to disaster resilience.

Last year, the urban centres of Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Japan were affected by severe floods, while the capital city Kathmandu bore the brunt of the economic damage from the Nepal earthquake. The report says that widespread floods in Chennai, India in December 2015 illustrate the common challenges faced by many big cities. With the ecological buffers depleted over time by rapid, unplanned urbanization, the floods inundated critical infrastructure, disrupted power networks and waterlogged major city roads. Economic damage and loss from the floods in Chennai have been estimated at more than US$10 billion. The report calls for a shift in the urban governance paradigm from a response-recovery approach to a risk-sensitive development approach.

According to the report, a prolonged El Niño phenomenon last year drew attention to neglected and often forgotten slow-onset disasters by severely exacerbating effects of heat waves, forest fires, haze, and droughts. 2015 was the hottest year on record and Pakistan and India reported more than 3,400 fatalities from a searing heatwave. Drought caused serious water and food shortages in much of South and South-East Asia and several fatalities in the Pacific. Reservoirs in some countries were at critically low levels and millions of hectares of crops were destroyed. The report notes that policymakers have an opportunity to rethink how drought is managed. Rather than dealing with the drought only when it becomes an emergency, it should be addressed from a long-term perspective to protect livelihoods.

To build a resilient Asia-Pacific, the report further calls for increased focus on risk-sensitive development, and stronger regional cooperation for managing trans-boundary disasters. It advocates capitalizing on emerging technologies such as UAVs for disaster management but stresses the need to establish regulatory standards for effective use of these technologies.

The report, commending the “Zero Casualty” policy implemented in Philippines as a regional good practice, concludes that disaster risk reduction cannot be achieved without political will and effective leadership at all levels of government.

Download a full copy of the report.