Visakhapatnam: Climate change will trigger massive natural disasters on the Asian continent and it is time to gear up to prepare for their impact, according to experts at the Second World Congress on Disaster Management, being held at Andhra University here on Friday. Speaking at the plenary session on ‘Children and Disaster Risk Reduction, Policy and Planning-Trends, Opportunities and Challenges’ , Lars Bend, head of DRR, Unicef India, said several surveys had reported that by 2020 around 175 million children across the globe would be affected every year by frequent natural disasters caused due to climate change. It would adversely affect India’s economy by about $9.8 billion a year. He also mentioned that disasters were the biggest global health threat to children and could increase the risk of deaths due to malnutrition.
In any disaster, children are the most vulnerable community. In the last five years about 8.45 million children were affected due to various disasters in India and 3.25 million pregnant and lactating mothers were at the receiving end in the period between 2000 and 2009, he added.
India, being a long coastal and river area country, people, especially children, will be affected by frequent cyclones, said Sudeshna Chatterjee, CEO, Action for Children’s Environment. Chairman of Steering Committee of the 2nd WCDM, N. Chinnarajappa said AP was a cyclone-prone area and the government has been chalking out plans on to rescue children during disasters.
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