UN to mark Nov. 5 as World Tsunami Awareness Day

The UN secretary-general's special representative for disaster risk reduction, Margareta Wahlstrom, on Wednesday welcomed a resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly recognizing Nov. 5 as World Tsunami Awareness Day.

Wahlstrom said that the Day will help to focus attention on measures which can be taken to reduce risks from both man-made and natural hazards and to ensure that more people live and work in places which are free from the threat, not just of tsunamis, but other sudden onset hazards such as earthquakes, floods and storms.

"It should be remembered that the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami which claimed some 230,000 lives from countries across the world galvanised political commitment to reducing disaster risk and disaster losses," Wahlstrom said.

"The memory of that event helped to ensure the adoption of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction this year which sets targets for the first time on reducing mortality, the numbers of people affected, economic losses and damage to critical infrastructure from disasters," she said.

The proposal for the UN resolution was first mooted by the Japanese government after the Third UN Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held in Sendai, Japan, in March this year, Farhan Haq, the deputy UN spokesman, told reporters here.

Japan has suffered heavy losses as a result of tsunamis, most recently the 2011 deadly earthquake and ensuing tsunami, which claimed more than 15,000 lives, disrupted the nuclear power industry and left many thousands homeless. Enditem