World Health Organisation. (Pp 141; Sw Fr 42). 1999. Geneva: World Health Organisation. ISBN 92 4 154519 4

• emergency
• disaster

Human and economic losses from natural disasters continue to rise around the world, a trend punctuated by highly devastating events such as Hurricane Mitch in Central America (1998) and the earthquake in Gujarat in India in 2000, when tens of thousands of people were killed or severely injured and communities containing hundreds of thousands of people have still not recovered from the inflicted damage. The International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) was launched by the United Nations in the 1990s, in a bold attempt to reduce such losses by transferring knowledge to mitigate hazards to the developing world where 90% of natural disasters and 96% of the deaths occur. The IDNDR did have the effect of focusing the attention of many scientists, especially those involved in the earth and meteorological sciences and engineering, towards the application of their work in reducing natural hazards. The …