London’s Guardian newspaper has published an article about the impact of natural disasters on the urban (and rural) poor which, although not focusing on the Caribbean region per se, points to the dangers faced by our island nations as climate changes made the likelihood and intensity of natural disasters worse, as has been the case in recent years in Haiti. The article is based on a 200-page study of disaster statistics from 1975 to 2007, assembled by the secretariat of the UN’s International Strategy for Natural Disaster Reduction. The figures were analyzed by meteorologists, seismologists, vulcanologists, earthquake engineers, hydrologists, flood control experts, wind engineers, urban planners and other academic scientists. According to the report, the world’s poorest cities (among which we find some Caribbean capitals) are now more dangerous than ever because of the combination of vulnerability to natural disasters, too-rapid growth, and precarious housing construction. As global warming and habitat destruction pushes more people to the cities in the future, these conditions will only be exacerbated.
Natural disaster, the article tells us, exacts a terrible price from poor communities with few funds available for disaster preparedness, weak or corrupt governments, and weak infrastructures. People who escape with their lives may lose everything else in a flood or hurricane: family, house, crops, livestock, tools, bedding, stores, friends, roads, schools – and the nearest medical clinic. As a result, the poor may take years just to get back to where they were before the catastrophe and usually face the same hazard season after season.
Meanwhile, because of population growth, the numbers of people at risk from flood, wind, earthquake, volcanic eruption, tsunami, drought, forest fire and landslide continues to swell. Because of population growth, forests are felled, soils erode, landscapes parch, coral reefs degrade, mangroves are destroyed and natural protection against disaster is compromised. And because of population and economic growth, greenhouse gases increase, so the frequency and intensity of climate-related hazards is also likely to grow. Under the triple curse of poverty, degradation and geography, these hazards will be highest in those countries where good government is likely to be least effective. Depressing, isn’t it?
For more go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/may/22/earthquakes-hit-urban-poor
Photograph : Patrick Farrell/AP [Mardoshe Thelisma is comforted by Roman Jean Francois at the funeral of Mardoche's cousin Dieunana Thelisma, who was crushed to death when the three-storey College La Promesse school collapsed in Petionville outside Port-au-Prince]
