Successful launch of the Sentinel-3A satellite for Europe’s Copernicus Environment Programme

On 16 February 2016, the Sentinel-3A satellite was successfully launched from Plesetsk, Russia.

Typhoons in the Philippines: A journey to disaster resilience

“All of the houses in my village were destroyed in a snap,” says Analita Garcela, the captain of the upland village of Cambucao in Tabon Tabon, Leyte – one of the communities hardest hit by Typhoon Haiyan in 2013.

New recommeneded practice on drought monitoring published

Disaster lessons from the hottest year on record

Disasters don’t recognise borders or calendar years. Nonetheless one would expect to learn something of value to disaster risk reduction from newly available data on disasters in 2015 which was the hottest year on record since pre-industrial times.

Building back better with Sendai

KOBE, February 3, 2015 - The ten-year old International Recovery Platform is getting a new lease of life thanks to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

ASEAN moves to strengthen disaster cooperation

SIEM REAP, Cambodia, 1 February 2016 – Greater disaster resilience at community and national level is an important element of a new era of closer integration and cooperation in Southeast Asia, a high-level ASEAN-China cooperation forum was told today.

Early warnings must make sense

GENEVA, 28 January 2015 – Early warning systems are doomed to fail if they don’t make sense to the very people that they are meant to help, delegates heard today at an international conference on harnessing science and technology to implement the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

How can science play a bigger part in reducing disaster risk?

When the Viceroy of Peru, Jose Antonio Mansa de Velasco, was given orders to rebuild Lima after an earthquake in October 1746, he hired the French mathematician, Louis Godin, to come up with a reconstruction plan.

Aichi Prefecture city rolls out new pay phones in disaster-prevention move

The city of Tahara in Aichi Prefecture is bringing back public pay phones in response to widespread mobile phone disruptions following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Detecting forest fires with satellites (MODIS and VIIRS)