New study: Pakistan among top 10 disaster-prone countries

Country suffers from poor governance, weak infrastructure

LONDON:

Pakistan is among the 10 countries whose population is acutely exposed to natural disasters largely because of poor governance, corruption, weak infrastructure and an inability to effectively implement policies to reduce risk, a new global assessment shows.

According to data compiled by Verisk Maplecroft, a UK-based risk management company, Pakistan ranks at seven with around 136 million (70% of its population) people exposed to natural hazards.

Asia has the largest number of people, 1.4 billion, exposed to natural disasters with India leading with a billion people (82% of the population) at risk, followed by China where 677 million (50% of the population) are at risk. Indonesia has 230 million (91% of their population) and Bangladesh has 151 million (75% of their population at risk).

Around 10 million Pakistanis are acutely exposed to floods, which the report identifies as the most substantial risk to communities and business in South Asia. In India, 113 million, and a further 76 million in Bangladesh were exposed to risk from floods.

The report noted that heavy rains in South India between November and December in 2015 caused flash floods which cost the country upwards of $3 billion and displaced over 100,000 people.

“In India and Pakistan, to some extent, there are building codes in place but they are very weakly implemented. You see construction going on, on the sides of landslide-prone mountains or in flood plains,” said Verisk Maplecroft analyst Richard Hewston who led development of the data.

“In theory, there’s urban planning,” he added. “So clearly corruption is an issue.”

In Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong, more than 85% of people are exposed to at least one kind of natural hazard, researchers noted. But all three countries are classed as having low vulnerability, and together recorded less than 32,000 deaths from natural disasters since 1990.

Haiti, on the other hand, is not as exposed to potential disasters but is considered highly vulnerable, having suffered over 230,000 deaths since 1990, most in the 2010 earthquake.

But the list of countries most vulnerable to disasters – in terms of their ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from them - is topped by African nations, particularly conflict-plagued South Sudan, Burundi and Eritrea.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 24^th, 2016.