Asia’s cities are becoming increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters as they struggle with poor planning, population explosions and climate change, the Asian Development Bank warned on Tuesday.
Floods, earthquakes and other disasters claim tens of thousands of lives a year and cost billions of dollars in the region’s cities and urban areas, but not nearly enough is being done to improve their defences, the bank said.
“The region has borne the brunt of the physical and economic damage of the sharp rise in natural disasters (globally) since the 1980s,” the ADB said in a statement accompanying the release of a new study.
“Its people are four times more likely to be affected by natural disasters than in Africa, and 25 times more likely than in Europe or North America,” it added.
Floods are the most common peril and have become three times more frequent across the Asia-Pacific in the past 30 years, the report said.
It found that the impact of storms on cities and urban areas has worsened due to chaotic urban planning and environmental degradation, as well as poorly-managed urbanisation and deforestation.
Meanwhile, millions of people are leaving safer rural areas for low-lying coastal cities, often driven to the economic hubs by poverty.