UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- The United Nations relief chief wants world leaders to improve efforts to deal with natural hazards and their impact on hundreds of millions of people.
Undersecretary-General Jan Egeland said Tuesday: "Country after country is proving that you can relatively easily prevent loss of life, you can relatively easily prevent the worst consequences of natural disasters."
But, he told reporters at U.N. World Headquarters in New York, "we all have to do more and last year showed that in both the poor countries and the rich countries more has to be done."
Along with other heads of U.N. agencies, Egeland has been championing disaster risk reduction ever since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, when experts said many thousands of the more than 200,000 dead could have been saved if early warning systems had existed and allowed them to escape to higher ground in the hours between the earthquake that triggered the giant waves and their landfall.
"I have seen how much we have made progress in doing emergency relief work and I've felt everyday how little has really been done in the past to reduce disaster risk and to prevent disasters from taking so many livelihoods, devastating so many communities," said the world organization's humanitarian relief coordinator.
Egeland highlighted the "unique partnership" between various United Nations agencies and other organizations involved in the U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction program.
He cited one example of its impact as helping ensure that no school in Pakistan is rebuilt following last year's deadly earthquake unless it is safer or more resistant in the face of a similar disaster.
