Haiyan raises pressing issues of disaster preparedness–comments for media from ADB’s Independent Evaluation

Dear friends in the media,

Here’s is a brief commentary on the urgency for disaster preparedness, dramatized by Super typhoon Haiyan that made the mark as one of the planet’s most deadly storms with its massive trail of death and destruction in the Philippines.

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Haiyan raises pressing issues of disaster preparedness
comments for media from Dr Vinod Thomas, Director-General of Independent Evaluation at the Asian Development Bank

Typhoon Haiyan demonstrated terrifyingly that many more Filipinos are now vulnerable to extreme storms and floods, as more people have moved into harm’s way in flood-prone areas in cities, low-lying coastlines, and uplands at risk from landslides. Socio-economic and demographic pressures are compounding this trend. Haiyan hit the poor hardest, but they have little capacity to deal with disaster risks.

The typhoon’s especially devastating impact on Tacloban City, which surrounds a bay at risk from storm surges, demonstrates the importance of location and vulnerability. Because extreme storms and floods are becoming more frequent, populations living in hazardous areas such as flood-prone urban communities and low-lying coastal regions are going to become a more urgent concern for policy makers and the development community.

People and communities across all income strata don’t have to be helpless victims of natural disasters, as recent experience of preparedness and response to calamities has shown. Typhoon Sendong in late 2011 caught people in Cagayan de Oro off guard because it hit a part of the southern Philippines not usually in the path of typhoons. But it spurred better disaster awareness in that cityand far fewer lives were lost there when Typhoon Pablo hit a year later.

Asia is at the sharp end of a global increase in natural disasters, most of them floods and storms or hydro-meteorological, which have risen fourfold in the last decade compared with the 1970s. In the Philippines, rainfall is rising—significantly so in some areas—and the frequency of meteorological disasters is the highest in the region.

All of the Philippines is now more exposed to highly destructive storms, not just the more northerly areas as was typical in past, as the path of typhoons appears to be shifting southward and cyclones of weaker intensity more frequently bring very intense rains.

To prevent years of hard-won economic and social progress being lost, the Philippines and others across the region need to invest more in disaster preparedness—in early warnings systems, better land zoning, and environmental controls. Yet many governments still focus only on relief and recovery.

The evidence linking climate change to the rise in extreme storms and floods is now compelling. This means that climate adaptation must become a crucial dimension in disaster prevention, including climate proofing of infrastructure and developing climate resilient crops.

Beyond this, the rise in the occurrence of these events points to another ominous reality. Without climate mitigation through emission controls worldwide, adaptation may never keep up with the aggravating impact of global warming on floods and storms. Clearly, we must mop up the floor after storms and flooding, but we also need to turn down the running tap with its source in increased carbon emissions in the air.

As floods and storms hit the countries with increased severity, it’s no longer far-fetched to think that a rain-filled typhoon like Haiyan’s ferocity could hit two or three times in a single rainy season. This calls for carrying out “stress tests” on likely natural hazards, just as stress tests are done on financial and economic crises.

*For further information, please see the Philippine section (p. 27) of the recent ADB paper Climate Related Disasters in Asia and the Pacific, available at http://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/pub/2013/ewp-358.pdf

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About Independent Evaluation at the Asian Development Bank
Asian Development Bank’s Independent Evaluation, reporting to the Board of Directors through the Development Effectiveness Committee, contributes to development effectiveness by providing feedback on ADB’s policies, strategies, operations, and special concerns in Asia and the Pacific.

Media Inquiries:
Hans van Rijn
Independent Evaluation Department
Telephone: +63 2 632 6791
Email: hvanrijn@adb.org