31 July 2010
Issue No. 82

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. Six cities highly vulnerable to hydro-meteorological disasters were selected for implementing demonstration projects on disaster mitigation by urban communities from 2006 to 2009 – Chittagong (Bangladesh), Hyderabad (Pakistan), Jakarta (Indonesia), Dagupan (Philippines), Kalutara (Sri Lanka), and Da Nang (Viet Nam). The program is now being implemented in Jamalpur (Bangladesh), Pasig (the Philippines), and Matara (Sri Lanka).

PROGRAM ACTIVITIES for July to August 2010:

• BANGLADESH – The DRR Technical Working Group in Jamalpur has developed the proposed action plan for DRR, to be used when the municipal council prepares the annual development plan. The action plan will be presented to the municipal council next month. Participatory risk maps have been developed for Wards 1, 10 and 12 in Jamalpur. These maps will serve as the for participatory risk mapping exercises for the remaining of wards of the municipality. The maps are to be the basis of into the ward-level action plans, and these plans will be integrated into the municipal action plan during a validation workshop between the TWG, the Pouroshava Disaster Management Committee, and the ward residents. Nineteen flood gauges were installed for the community-based flood early warning system after weeks of intense consultations with the municipal officials and ward residents alike, and as many volunteers were nominated for the training on maintaining the flood level data and relaying the data to the municipality’s EOC. The training will also be in August.

• PHILIPPINES –   The Pasig City TWG for PROMISE Philippines held a workshop to review the new Republic Act 10121, the “Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010”, to understand the possible scope of action and need for coordination between the new committees to be created under the law (e.g. the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, and the Barangay Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Committee). The PROMISE Philippines team held the CBDRRM training workshops for all project barangays this July. The high-risk communities of Pasig City were given training on the basic concepts of disaster risk management, underwent participatory risk mapping and action planning exercises to help them recognize their risks, their current abilities to cope with floods and typhoons, and to plan for their own risk reduction. The communities will have their graduation ceremonies in August. Finally, the project team is preparing for a seminar on DRR for primary and secondary school teachers working in schools in Pasig City. The event is a joint activity of PROMISE and the Division of City Schools of the Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS).

• SRI LANKA – This July, PROMISE SL concentrated on implementing the flood mitigation projects identified by the communities during their action planning sessions. The PROMISE SL project outputs have been regularly featured on the website of the national Disaster Management Centre (see http://www.dmc.gov.lk/adpc/ADPCpromise.htm). Finally, Matara has just been named as the Best Municipal Council for 2008 by the Ministry of Local Government. The award is given after a national evaluation of all local authorities (municipal councils, urban councils and Pradeshiya Sabas) using 16 criteria and 78 performance indicators under the categories of Service Delivery, Office Management and Administration, Good Governance, and Achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

A. From the Region

(1)    Monsoon floods in India

(based on reports from Alertnet)

Heavy monsoon rains killed more than 50 people, affected about a million people, and displaced almost half a million from their houses in India's south and northeast during the first week of July. Overflowing rivers and reservoirs inundated low-lying villages mainly in the state of Assam, but also on the opposite side of the country in the southwestern coastal state of Kerala.  Around 700 relief camps had to accommodate over 400,000 people from the poor farming communities in Assam. 

(2)    Monsoon floods in Bangladesh
(based on reports from IRIN)

Over 600,000 people living on river islands (locally called chars) were marooned, and thousands of hectares of crops destroyed due to heavy monsoon flooding in Bangladesh.  Chars of the Brahmaputra river are a by-product of its hydro-morphological dynamics; these islands periodically submerge during the annual monsoon flood season that runs from the second week of June to mid-August.  Flooding has made access difficult to ensure the well-being of the stranded residents. 

(3)    Typhoon Conson affects Manila, Southern China and Viet Nam
(based on reports from Alertnet and IRIN)

Typhoon Conson sliced killed 22 people, felled trees and snapped electricity transmission lines on the island of Luzon in the Philippines.  Twelve people were injured and 57 reported missing as the typhoon weakened into a storm packing winds of 95 kph on its way towards China.  The storm eventually passed China, although strong winds and heavy rains toppled billboards that killed at least two people and partially cut power in Sanya, a resort city on the southern tip of Hainan.  The tropical storm made landfall in northern Vietnam on Saturday, where the Viet Nam army helped to evacuate about 150,000 people in coastal provinces.  The government also issued warnings of possible flash floods and landslides in mountainous areas.  Six fishermen and a female tourist were reported missing. 

(4)    Floods and Landslides in China
(based on reports from Alertnet)

During the first two weeks of July, torrential rains in southwestern China triggered landslides that killed 17 people and left 44 missing in Yunnan province and Sichuan province.  Another 43 people were killed and 18 missing in floods in central and eastern China near the Yangtze River. 

(5)    Flash floods wreak havoc in Pakistan
(based on reports from Alertnet and IRIN)

Tens of thousands of people are affected by torrential monsoon rains and flash floods in different areas of the country that have not stopped.  According to reports, the floods inflicted affected the greatest losses on the northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.  Estimates vary over the number of people affected by the floods, with the estimate from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) at four million, while some media reports suggest up to 14 million.  Floods also affected an estimated 1.6 million people in the eastern province of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, with the destruction of an estimated 84,000 homes and at least 1.4 million acres of agricultural land.  In Sindh province, over 150,000 had been evacuated in anticipation of the arrival of the floods. 

(6)    Flash floods leave over 20 dead in Afghanistan
(based on reports by IRIN and Alertnet)

Flash floods in different parts of Afghanistan killed over 60 people and made hundreds homeless.  The northeastern Kapisa and the eastern Laghman provinces were worst affected, as the flash floods that occurred  on 26-27 July caused extensive damage to farmland.  Damage assessment and relief efforts are underway, and coordinated with UN agencies and NGOs.  The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement that it worked with Afghanistan's fledgling air force to rescue more than 2,000 Afghans from flooding in the nearby provinces of Nangahar and Kunar. 

(7)    Wildfires in Russia
(based on reports from CNN and the NYTimes)

Fire killed 25 people by end July, including two firefighters, and burned more than 1000 homes across 14 fire-striken regions of central Russia.  Fueled by parched forests, dried-out swamps and the hottest summertime temperatures ever recorded in Russia, the wildfires burned down several villages in the central part of the country and left with some 2,000 homeless.

B. Calls for Submission

(8) Call for Responses: Questionnaire on Reducing Risk During Recovery
On behalf of the international recovery platform (www.recoveryplatform.org) we would like to invite you to take a short survey, as part of a research contribution to the 2011 Global Assessment Report. The survey will take between ten (10) and twenty (20) minutes to complete. The purpose of this survey is to better understand the opportunities, conditions, factors and actions during recovery that could reduce risk. We would appreciate it if you could complete this confidential survey by 30th August. To undertake the survey please go to (or cut and paste to your browser) the following link http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/reducing_risk_during_recovery.

(9) Extended call for nominations: NUWA 2010
The Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), Government of India (GoI) invites nominations for the National Urban Water Awards 2010. The awards are open to 1) Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), 2) Water Boards/ Utilities, and 3) Private Sector, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), Community-Based Organizations (CBOs), Bilateral and Multilateral Agencies, in collaboration with ULBs/Water Boards Utilities. Nominations are invited under six categories, i.e. (i) Technical Innovation (ii) Financial Reform (iii) Services to the Poor (iv) Citizen Services and Governance (v) Public-Private Partnerships and (vi) Urban Sanitation. All the eligible organizations can submit multiple entries in different categories. The new deadline for nominations is September 11. For inquiries, contact Prof. V. Srinivas Chary, schary@asci.org.in. Get more information here: http://www.waterawards.in/.

C. Conferences and Courses

 

(10) Asia-Oceania Resilience (AOR 2010) – Singapore, 5-6 October 2010
Organizer: International Association of Emergency Managers.
Asia-Oceania Resilience (AOR 2010) will bring together private and public sector professionals in security, emergency management, crisis management, business continuity management, risk management and disaster relief, focusing on Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Conference topics are on mitigation, preparation, response and recovery. Visit the conference website: http://www.iaem.com.sg/Asia-Oceania-Resilience-2010.htm.

(11) The 10th International Training Course on Flood Disaster Risk Management from 11-22 October 2010 in Bangkok, Thailand
Organizer: Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC).
FDRM course offers an integrated approach to the development of flood risk reduction strategies under the challenging circumstance of climate change, which enables a holistic view of flood situation and the needed prepared measures. It is specifically designed to meet the need of disaster management professionals, researchers, policy makers, planners, academicians, administrators and disaster management and career seekers. For inquiries, please send email to: tedadpc@adpc.net.

(12) The 6th Regional Training Course on GIS for Disaster Risk Assessment, Level-II from 1-12 November 2010 in Bangkok, Thailand
Organizer: Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), and Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente.
GIS4DRA Level-II is an advance course attempts to provide knowledge and skills in multi-hazard risk assessment and loss estimation to the professionals with GIS and Remote Sensing (RS) background as well as in multi-criteria analysis for decision making. This course designed to the professionals who are interested in multi-hazard risk assessment using these tools and will be suitable for practitioners working in government organization, municipalities, NGOs, international organizations and academic institutions. For inquiries, please send email to: tedadpc@adpc.net.

(13) Special Conference Session: 'Disaster Risk Management' – Hanoi, Vietnam, 2 November 2010
Session organizers: Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), and Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente.
A special session on 'Disaster Risk Management' at the 31st Asian Conference on Remote Sensing (ACRS) will take place on 2 November 2010. The session will feature disaster-related topics. For more details on the conference, go to: http://www.acrs2010.com.vn.

D. Useful Resources

(14) Urban Governance and Community Resilience Guides
ADPC announces a new series of guidebooks developed under PROMISE that are designed to raise awareness of the challenges local governments face in reducing disaster risks. The titles are the following:
• Book 1 - Our Hazardous Environment
• Book 2 - Risk Assessment in Cities
• Book 3 - Planning for Disaster Risk Reduction
• Book 4 - Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction
These guidebooks offer essential tools and possible solutions to make that will help local governments to make effective decisions. The guidebooks can be used as self-study material by individual readers, as a resource for participants in a training course or program, or as a reference for government officials. Available for download in low- and high-resolution PDFs at:
http://www.adpc.net/v2007/Programs/UDRM/PROMISE/INFORMATION%20RESOURCES/Guidebooks/Default.asp.

(15) Urban risk management in South Asia, SAARC, 2010
http://www.preventionweb.net/english/professional/publications/v.php?id=14785
SAARC published a compilation of case studies of initiatives towards the resilience South Asian cities. The book contains reprints of two of ADPC’s Safer Cities case studies, #21 entitled “Community Empowerment and Disaster Risk Reduction in Chittagong City” on p. 55, and #24 entitled “Learning to Act Together: Disaster Mitigation in Hyderabad, Pakistan Through Collaborative Initiatives” on p. 131.

(16) ICT for Disaster Risk Reduction: Case Study 2, UN-APCICT, May 2010
http://www.unapcict.org/ecohub/ict-for-disaster-risk-reduction-1/at_download/attachment1
This document presents the ways in which information and communication technology (ICT) can be used to improve disaster management, and gives examples and lessons learned by disaster management practitioners. The book contains an updated version one of ADPC’s Safer Cities case studies, #18, re-titled as, “Reaching the Last Mile through Community-based Disaster Risk Management: A Case Study from Sri Lanka,” on p. 96.

(17) China (South) floods satellite images:
from the International Charter:
http://www.disasterscharter.org/web/charter/activation_details?p_r_p_1415474252_assetId=ACT-318

(18) Pakistan floods satellite images:
from SpaceAid:
http://www.un-spider.org/page/3681/un-spider-spaceaid-available-space-based-information-flood-pakistan
from the International Charter:
http://www.disasterscharter.org/web/charter/activation_details?p_r_p_1415474252_assetId=ACT-319
from Sentinel Asia:
http://www.adrc.asia/view_disaster_en.php?NationCode=586&lang=en&KEY=1423

(19) Russia wildfire satellite images
from GFMC/Avialesookhrana (combined information sources):
http://www.nffc.aviales.ru/cloud_products/cloud_anim_r.sht?reg=russia