Disaster Mitigation
in Asia

31 Mar 2009
Issue No. 66

The Program for Hydro-meteorological Disaster Mitigation in Secondary Cities in Asia (PROMISE), funded by USAID/OFDA, commenced from October 2005.  The objective of the program is to contribute towards reduction of vulnerability of urban communities through enhanced preparedness and mitigation of hydro-meteorological disasters in South and Southeast Asia.  Components of the program consist of capacity building in hydro-meteorological disaster risk reduction, risk management advocacy, networking and dissemination initiatives, and city demonstration projects in selected countries.  Through consultations with a number of ADPC partners, five project countries were selected in 2005 for implementing demonstration projects in a highly vulnerable city with recent history of hydro-meteorological disasters – Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam.  The projects in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam were finished by June 2008.  The projects in the Philippines and Sri Lanka were given supplementary activities, while a project in Indonesia began in February 2008.  The main activities from January to March 2009 are: development of early warning systems, set up of emergency response system, disaster management planning for selected schools, and networking for DRR.

PROGRAM ACTIVITIES for March to April 2009:

• INDONESIA – PROMISE ID continued to work on developing guidelines for mainstreaming DRR and risk management into the city development plan.

• PHILIPPINES – PROMISE RP organized on March 3 an orientation on “DRR in the Education Sector in the Philippines” for the heads of the Dagupan City Division of the Department of Education, Culture and Sports.  The orientation was attended by school principals and the TWG. They agreed to have a DRR workshop for the primary and secondary teachers in Dagupan City in May 2009, with the aim to orient teachers on basic DRR concepts, organize DRR groups per school, and produce DRR action plans for schools.  The discussion of the orientation was reported at the Education Cluster meeting on March 9.  Ms. Mayfourth Luneta presented the PROMISE RP activity on mainstreaming DRR in the Education Sector at a training for Maldivian teachers on the same topic last March 23-27.  Other networking activities for the month are: (1) sharing the Oxfam GB documentary on Barangay Mangin at the Forum on Women and Climate Change on March 11, highlighting what women are doing in DRR; (2) participating in the Hyogo Framework for Action Monitoring by getting Dagupan’s partners in all sectors to answer the HFA monitoring tool; and (3) organizing a Tsunami Preparedness Orientation for Dagupan City on March 31, with active participation by the TWG, the Region 1 Disaster Coordinating Council, and the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.  Activities for next month include: Bangladesh Study Tour to Dagupan City, preparation for the DRR workshop for Dagupan schools, and a meeting with the RDCC for Preparation of Northern Luzon DRR net Workshop.

• SRI LANKA – NBRO, the PROMISE SL partner, held a workshop on March 19 with community representatives for reviewing proposals for drainage projects, and for prioritizing the same.  About 50 participants came representing their communities; other participants included government representatives, members of Kalutara Urban Council, the Mayor of Kalutara, officials of the Disaster Management Centre in Kalutara, and representatives of Sri Lanka Red Cross.

 A. From the Region

(1) Locust outbreak in Yemen
(based on a report from IRIN)
Yemen’s Agriculture Ministry reported a new locust outbreak in the southern governorate of Shabwa, when a field team discovered on 18 March that immature locusts were spreading over a 40-hectare area.  Fumigation is the response to manage the infestation to prevent their migration to summer breeding areas. 

(2) Diarrhea outbreak in Dhaka
(based on a report by IRIN)
High temperatures and power outages have combined to lower the availability of safe drinking water, and resulted in an unusually early outbreak of diarrhea across Dhaka, Bangladesh.  Compared with the same period of last year, the number of patients has trebled.  Diarrhea is one of Bangladesh's main health concerns; it is responsible for about 9% of deaths among infants under 12 months old, 10% of deaths among the under-fives, and infant and child mortality rates due to diarrhea is at almost 100 children a day. 

(3) Dam collapse in Indonesia
(based on reports by PROMISE Indonesia, AlertNet and IRIN)
An earth dam built in 1933 by the Dutch colonial government had burst on March 27, releasing a 1.5m³ wall of water that killed 98 people and destroyed eight houses. The spilled water caused heavy damage to 319 houses, two schools and a mosque.  At least 2,000 people were moved to four evacuation centers; 115 people are still missing.  Situ Gintung dam in Tangerang, Banten Province collapsed around 4:30 AM, although the community near the dam had already seen the sign of dam failure at about 2 AM.  Unfortunately, only a few of people were evacuated in time because most people were asleep.  Over time, there had been a reduction in the lake’s extent from 31 hectares to 24 hectares.  Before the dam failure, there had already been the appearance of cracks and pipe erosion in the dam; these combined with the narrowing of the lake and unusually heavy rain that lasted three days before the event.

B. Calls for Submission

(4) Call for Abstracts: Best Practices Booklet on Geo-information for Risk and Disaster Management

The Joint Board of Geospatial Information Societies and UN-SPIDER jointly invite contributions to a "Best Practices Booklet on Geo-information for Risk and Disaster Management" based on the knowledge and experience of experts, to outline the potential uses of the Geo-Information Technologies to governmental, institutional and operative decision makers all over the world.  Articles should be short enough to be read during a coffee break, addressing one or more of the disaster types and technologies listed: 1) disaster types: geophysical (earthquake, tsunami, volcano, mass movement, severe storm, flood, fire, drought, extreme temperature), biological (epidemic, insect infestation, vector diseases), and technological/societal (pollution, industrial facilities failure, terrorist attacks, traffic break down and accidents); 2) technology used: data collection technology (sensors and products), data processing (systems for real-time monitoring/tracking, prediction and simulation), data management and analysis (spatio-temporal, image, moving objects and point clouds databases), data access and sharing (SDI, Web portals, command and control systems, Net-centric systems, ontology/semantic-based applications, context-aware search), data visualization (Web visualization, VR environments, dedicated systems).  Abstracts should not exceed 400 words and should outline a successful application, including data acquisition, information extraction and dissemination, and a clear statement of the benefits and further potential of the practice described as compared to classical methods.  Submit abstracts by 30 April 2009 as an email attachment to Prof. Piero Boccardo (piero.boccardo@polito.it).

C. Conferences and Courses

(5) GIS for Disaster Risk Management (an introductory course) – Bangkok, Thailand: 11 - 22 May 2009

Organizer: Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC).  The course provides an excellent opportunity for professionals and practitioners to obtain essential skills and knowledge in GIS and RS and their current application in disaster risk management. Participants will gain practical and technical knowledge on the uses of GIS and RS in disaster prevention, preparedness and emergency response.  Extensive exercises and simulations provide an insight into how GIS and RS tools are applied in these fields, and the benefits and solutions that can be presented.  The course is co-organized with the International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observations and the Asian Institute of Technology.  For more information, please go to: http://www.adpc.net/v2007/Downloads/2009/May/01_GIS_for_DRM[1].pdf. 

(6) 4^th Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction in Local Governance – Manila, Philippines: 25 – 29 May 2009

Organizer: Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC).  The overall objective is to develop a cadre of local government professionals sensitive to issues presented by the recurrent hazards.  The course intends to increase their knowledge, as well as of other stakeholders, on urban governance and disaster risk management to be responsive to the needs of vulnerability reduction, and to create opportunities for mainstreaming risk reduction as a component of urban governance.  For inquiries, contact Mr. Falak Nawaz, tedadpc@adpc.net, or Mr. Amit Kumar, amit@adpc.net.

D. Useful Resources

(7) Bangladesh Quarterly Economic Update
http://mms.adb.org/e-Notification/url.asp?ID=18714&DOCID=16767 

(8) A Billion Hungry People, Oxfam, January 2009

Oxfam published a briefing paper on the impact of the global recession and other drivers that are reducing people’s access to food.  To download the paper, go to: http://oxfam.intelli-direct.com/e/d.dll?m=234&url=http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/conflict_
disasters/downloads/bp127_billion_hungry.pdf.

 (9) Rethinking Disasters, Oxfam, 2008

This report addresses draws on Oxfam's experience in preparing for and responding to disasters across South Asia.  Its topics include: consequences of poor policies and inaction; environmental challenges caused by climate change; disaster risk reduction; and recommendations for the future.  The report is part of a series of papers that seeks to educate the members of public about issues on development and humanitarian policy issues.  To download the report, go to: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/conflict_disasters/
downloads/oxfam_india_rethinking_disasters.pdf.

 (10) PROMISE Online IEC Materials

A new webpage of PROMISE features IEC materials developed under the different city demonstration projects.  The online materials include the following:

• 2007 Pocket Calendar (Bangla)

• Oxfam GB video documentary "Strength in Numbers: The Barangay as Building Block", 2008 (in two parts; with links to YouTube)

• Bookmark, 2007 (Filipino)

• Picture book, Disaster Preparedness and Living Environment Protection, 2008 (Vietnamese)

• Poster, Flood- and Typhoon- Resilient Construction Principles (Vietnamese)

Visit the page and download the resources at: http://www.adpc.net/v2007/Programs/UDRM/PROMISE/PROGRAM%20COMPONENTS/Component1/IECMaterials/Default-IECMaterials.asp. 

(11) Online Resources Series on Natural Hazards

This new section is a focus on online resources on the hazards that are of special interest for urban disaster management.  The hazards that will be featured are (in order): tropical cyclones (a.k.a. cyclone, typhoon and hurricane), drought, flood, landslide, earthquake and technological hazards.  Here is a list of online resources on technological hazards that can interact with natural hazards (such as tropical cyclones, floods, landslides and earthquakes):

• EM-Dat technological hazard disaster profile database access page: http://www.emdat.be/Database/DisasterProfile/profile_disasters.php?period=1900%242009&disgroup=group&dis_type=%27Industrial+Accident%27%2C%27Miscellaneous+accident%27%2C%27Transport+Accident%27%24Technological&Submit=Display+Disaster+Profile#top10lists
• SAARC brief on fires: http://saarc-sdmc.nic.in/fire.asp
• IFRC webpage on technological hazards with useful links: http://www.ifrc.org/what/disasters/about/types/technological
  /industrial.asp
• ADPC, “Lao Urban Fire Risk Assessment Mapping in Luangprabang City,” December 2004: http://www.adpc.net/audmp/library/firerist/LPB-complete.pdf
• ADPC, “Lao Urban Fire Risk Assessment Mapping in Pakse City,” December 2004: http://www.adpc.net/audmp/library/firerist/PSK-complete.pdf
• ADPC, “Lao Urban Fire Risk Assessment Mapping in Vientiane Capital,” December 2004: http://www.adpc.net/audmp/library/firerist/VTE-complete.pdf
• ADPC, “Fire Risk Assessment in Vientiane Lao PDR,”Regional Workshop on Best Practices in Disaster Mitigation, 2002, pp. 97 to 102: http://www.adpc.net/audmp/rllw/default.html
• Technical and human aspects of historic rockslide dammed lakes and landslide dam breaches, Bonnard, 2006: http://www.preventionweb.net/english/professional/
  publications/v.php?id=5515
• Safer Cities 9: Reducing fire Treats to Home: Piloting Community-based Fire Risk Assessment in Ban Hatsady Village, July 2004: http://www.adpc.net/AUDMP/library/safer_cities/9.pdf
• Safer Cities 11: Towards Technological Hazards Risk Reduction in Ahmedabad: School as effective institutions for disaster awareness and preparedness, December 2004: http://www.adpc.net/AUDMP/library/safer_cities/11.pdf