The Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control reviewed natural disaster mitigation efforts the first 8 months of this year in the context of increasingly complex climate change context.
For the past 8 months, the country has experienced erratic weather, with sudden cold spells during summer, heavy rainfall, prolonged drought, surprise flash floods and thunderstorms that left 98 people dead.
The number of deaths was mostly ascribed to the lack of natural disaster preparation. Physical losses during this period were 3.5 times that of the same period in previous years.
For the past 50 years, the Earth’s temperature has increased by between 0.2 and 0.7 degree Celsius. Weather forecast models based on statistics recorded for the past century are no longer valid due to irregular weather conditions at present. Significant changes in mindset about natural disaster prevention and climate change are necessary for more effective solutions.
