8 PHL cities among top 10 most at risk from natural hazards – study

A risk management firm has warned that 21 Philippine cities are at great risk from natural hazards, with a staggering eight of them included in the top ten at most risk. 

 

In its 5th Annual Natural Hazards Risk Atlas (NHRA), Verisk Maplecroft assessed the natural hazard exposure of over 1,300 cities that were selected for their importance as significant economic and population centres in the coming decade.

 

“The Philippines’ extreme exposure to a myriad of natural hazards is reflected by the inclusion of eight of the country’s cities among the ten most at risk globally, including Tuguegarao (2nd), Lucena (3rd), Manila (4th), San Fernando (5th) and Cabanatuan (6th),” the initial report said. 

 

Of the top ten cities most at risk, only Port Vila, Vanuatu (1st) and Taipei City, Taiwan (8th) are not in the Philippines.

 

Maplecroft looked at various factors in determining their rankings, including but not limited to the combined risk posed by tropical storms and cyclones, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, severe storms, extra-tropical cyclones, wildfires, storm surges, volcanoes and landslides.

 

The group offered that knowing risks helps businesses as well as residents to fully prepare for oncoming disasters.

 

“As Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) in the Philippines and the tsunami in Japan showed us, natural hazard events can have far-reaching and long-lasting impacts on supply chains, business and economies,” said Dr. Richard Hewston, principal environmental analyst at Verisk Maplecroft. 

 

“Understanding how, where and why those risks manifest is an imperative in managing potential shocks,” he added.

 

Of the 100 cities in the report with the greatest exposure to natural hazards, 21 are located in the Philippines, 16 in China, 11 in Japan and eight in Bangladesh. 

 

Maplecroft singled out the Philippines for the country’s “poor institutional and societal capacity to manage, respond and recover from natural hazards events.”

 

In addition to assessing exposure, the Natural Hazards Risk Atlas also evaluated a country’s ability to manage and mitigate the impacts of natural hazard events, through the Socio-economic Resilience Index.

Using the variables of the index, the report said that while Japan, which ranks 178th out 198 countries for resilience, is classified as ‘low risk,’ the Philippines, which ranks 80th, is considered ‘high risk’, in part due to entrenched corruption and high levels of poverty.

 

“With foreign investment continuing to flow into countries highly exposed to natural hazards, those which are unable to demonstrate robust resilience may lose an element of their competitiveness,” said Hewston. — Patricia Denise Chiu/JDS, GMA News