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RADIUS Project

The IDNDR Secretariat with the support of Japanese government is carrying out a project aimed at promoting worldwide activities for reduction of seismic disasters in urban areas, particularly in developing countries. The project called Risk Assessment Tools for Diagnosis of Urban Areas against Seismic Disasters (RADIUS) will be car- ried out between 1997 and 1999.

Through the project, it is expected that state- of-the-art studies and technologies for seismic disaster mitigation will be incorporated into ap- propriate tools available to all people in the world. These "globally applicable local tools' will be developed, based on the analysis of a number of case studies. The case studies will be carried out to transfer the already existing advanced tech- nologies for seismic risk assessment to several earthquake prone cities in developing countries and to raise awareness of seismic risks. These examples will be a good source of information for other earthquake prone cities.

For the case studies, the IDNDR Secretariat will select about 10 earthquake prone cities mainly from metropolitan areas in developing countries. One or two intermediate or small cities will be selected from island states or mountainous areas, which are highly vulnerable to earthquakes, tsunamis or landslides. The "full case studies- with intensive external assistance will be conducted in cities where any similar project has not been carried out. The "auxiliary case study" will be conducted in cities where a similar project has been carried out before or the full case study can be conducted without intensive assistance. The one year case study will be assigned to the local governments with financial support of ap- proximately US$ 40,000 to 50,000 for the full case study and US$ 10,000 to 20,000 for the auxiliary case study from the Secretariat. It is expected that the supplementary budget will be prepared locally It is also expected that other cities will conduct the case studies at their expense.

The total cost of the project is estimated to be approximately US$ 1.4 million. The goverrunent of Japan has contributed US$ 350,000 for the first year. Japan has also established a voluntary committee to support the RADIUS project. It is expected that other donors will further contribute to the project so that the project could afford to conduct more case studies and to develop more elaborate but practical tools.

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Project Announcement

In order to strengthen concerted action for natural disaster reduction, the IDNDR Secretariat and UNESCO have initiated a project called Development of Institutional Networks for Disaster Re- duction. The project will set the stage for dialogue and action to foster and strengthen collaboration among universities and scientific institutions and facilitate collaboration with existing networks in disaster preparedness, prevention and miitigation.

As the first step towards strengthening such networks, an inventory of capacities in the universities and scientific institutions is being initiated through a questionnaire. Following the inventory, on a regional basis, the intention is to promote exchange of information, collaboration and establishment of mechanisms for supporting the ap- Propriate research, training and application of disaster reduction at the local level. In order to receive the questionnaire, please contact:

IDNDR Internet Conference

The IDNDR Internet Conference, Solutions for Cities at Risk, was one of the most important ac- tivities of the 1996 campaign. There were more than 400 participants registered by email for this conference and many more looking in on the Web site. Participants from 10 Asian countries registered for the conference. Asian Disaster Preparedness Center and Asian Development Bank were among the organizations participating from Asia. Planning emerged as the topic which solicited most discussion. Other topics such as Community Participation, Disaster Management Scenarios, Telecommunications/Early Warning, and Engineering/Construction also elicited a good deal of discussion. The success of this Conference was reflected by the fact that it gave irnpetus to a lot of bilateral networking amongst the participants. This virtual conference was also presented to live conferences in Rome, Paris, Miami and Geneva.