Metro Manila is ‘7-11 of disasters’

MANILA, Philippines—Metro Manila is the “7-11 of disasters.”

The National Capital Region topped cities in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) “most at risk” of flooding and earthquake, according to the latest ASEAN risk assessment synthesis report.

A copy of the report, commissioned by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) with help from the World Bank, was given Tuesday to the Philippine Daily Inquirer ahead of its release.

“The Philippines is prone to calamities because it is situated in the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire.’ We have volcanoes. We are in the typhoon belt, so we have many typhoons. We have floods, El Niño, La Niña—that’s where we are,” said Jerry Velasquez, the Bangkok-based senior regional coordinator of UNISDR for Asia and the Pacific.

“We are the 7-11 of disasters—the convenience store of disasters,” he stressed in a phone interview.

ASEAN’s report was tackled during the closed-door consultative meeting for parliamentarians on disaster risk reduction (DRR) convened in Manila last week by Margareta Wahlström of Sweden, DRR assistant secretary general, and Sen. Loren Legarda, the UNISDR advocate of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.

This grim reality for about 12 million people of the country’s highly congested metropolis compelled parliamentarians, who met for three days in Manila last week, to issue an urgent “Manila Call for Action 2010.”

The communiqué detailed several concrete steps to actively pursue efforts to reduce risks and vulnerabilities in Manila and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, and compel governments to undertake disaster-resilient development.

No. 1 in overall risks

The sorry state of the flood-prone capital of the Philippines is followed by Jakarta (Indonesia), Bangkok (Thailand), Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi (both in Vietnam).

Metro Manila is also the No. 1 city most at risk of earthquake, followed by Jakarta, Rangoon in Burma (Myanmar), Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh.

Metro Manila also ranked “highest” in the assessment of the “overall risks” from these natural hazards (typhoon, earthquake, tsunami, flood, epidemics, landslide, drought, volcanic eruption and forest fires).

Next came Jakarta, Rangoon, Ho Chi Minh, Bangkok, Hanoi, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Naypyidaw (Burma), Phnom Penh (Cambodia), Vientiane (Laos) and Bandar Seri Begawan (Brunei).

Although not yet made public, the synthesis report was officially presented by Velasquez on Oct. 25 to the ASEAN working group on risk assessment in Incheon, South Korea.

UNISDR hired Risk Management Inc. based in India to undertake the risk assessment.

Turbo-charged

Relevant portions of the report were also echoed by Emmanuel de Guzman, a UNISDR consultant, at the Manila meeting. People in the Asia-Pacific region, he said, are most at risk of disasters—four times more than those in Africa and 25 times more than people in Europe or North America.

Climate change, also dubbed as global warming, is caused by a host of factors with the massive concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as the chief culprit, resulting in rising global temperature and sea levels.

“These natural risks are turbo-charged by climate change, which will magnify the disaster impact on the poor and most vulnerable sectors,” Legarda told the gathering.

In a press release, Legarda said that parliamentarians from the 10 nations were going back to their countries with a “commitment to undertake several concrete actions towards disaster-resilient development.”

“Knowing that disaster risks and climate change do not respect boundaries, they pledged to be agents of change and form a coalition of parliamentarians at the national, regional and international levels to actively pursue disaster risk reduction,” she said.

“They also committed to enhance their knowledge and capacity through forums for sharing knowledge, information, and best practices of countries. Furthermore, they also committed to lobby for an increase in national investment on disaster risk reduction initiatives and to facilitate direct access to international funds intended for climate change adaptation for reducing climate-related risks.” –Michael Lim Ubac, Philippine Daily Inquirer