With more than 4,300 km facing the Pacific Ocean, Chile is extremely exposed to the threat of tsunamis, with no fewer than four events in the past ten years. The 8.8 quake that hit central Chile in 2010 killed more than 500 people and cost more than $30 billion, most damage was related to infrastructure.

“We have considerably improved our national monitoring and warning and invested massively in structural and non-structural preventive measures to reduce economic losses,” said Barnadita Paul, currently dealing with the Reconstruction and risk management of disasters at the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development in Chile, and a counsellor in Puente Alto.

“The tourism sector is very aware of the cost benefit of investing in disaster risk reduction measures and risk assessments before building new infrastructure and I am quite confident that we are making progress.”

Reducing disaster impacts and achieving target “c” of the Sendai Framework – the world plan for reducing disaster losses by 2030 – was a central theme at the Regional Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, in Colombia last week, and among the main commitments made by Americas in the final Cartagena declaration.

Linked to this, "Reducing economic losses" will also be the theme of this year's Tsunami Awareness Day, marked each year on 5 November. 

The region is the second most disaster-prone in the world after Asia-Pacific with an estimated $300 billion losses in 2017 including the Mexican earthquakes.

Date:

26 Jun 2018

Sources:

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction – Regional Office for the Americas (UNISDR AM)

Themes:

Capacity Development, Climate Change, Community-based DRR, Early Warning, Private Sector, Disaster Risk Management, Critical Infrastructure, Vulnerable Populations, Small Islands Developing States (SIDS)

Hazards:

Earthquake, Tsunami

Regions:

Americas