Ecobreves – PERU: Demand for Disaster-Prevention Measures

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

LIMA, Nov 8 2004 (IPS) - Peru lacks an effect system for preventing extreme impacts from natural disasters, despite being one of the world's most seismically unstable countries and bearing the brunt of El Niño climate phenomena, including floods, drought and mudslides, says president of Red Cross – Peru, Edgardo Calderón. ''It is not enough to hold talks at schools and disseminate information through the press. We must renew preventative strategies throughout the country,'' said Calderón, whose organization revealed that from 1994 to 2003, 445 people died and some four million were left homeless as a result of natural disasters, including earthquakes.

The Civil Defense Institute is drawing up an initiative to be presented to Parliament for setting up a disaster prevention plan and conducting studies of the city of Lima's vulnerability to earthquakes, he added.

Health Minister Pilar Mazzetti told Tierramérica that, among other things, it is essential to increase resources to deal with unseasonable freezes in the mountainous Andes region, ''where geographic vulnerability is aggravated by extreme levels of poverty.''