Earthquakes were the deadliest natural disasters in the past decade, accounting for 60 per cent of deaths caused by such hazards, a senior United Nations official said on January 28 2010, emphasising the importance of investing in disaster risk reduction.

UN Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction Margareta Wahlström was quoted by the UN News Service as saying that earthquakes remained a serious threat for millions of people worldwide as eight of the most populous cities in the world are built on earthquake fault-lines.

"The fortunate part is that earthquakes don’t happen very often but they are the deadliest of disasters. They take large numbers of people’s lives in a split second," she said during a joint news conference in Geneva between the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) and the Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED).

According to the figures released on January 28 by CRED, 3852 disasters killed more than 780 000 people over the past 10 years, affected more than two billion others and cost a minimum of $960 billion.

In terms of human losses, Asia is the continent that has been struck again and again by disasters during the last decade, accounting for 85 per cent of all fatalities.

The most deadly disasters of the past decade were the Indian Ocean tsunami, which hit several countries in Asia in 2004, leaving 226 408 dead; Cyclone Nargis, which killed 138 366 people in Myanmar (2008); and the Sichuan earthquake in China (2008), causing the deaths of 87 476 people. In addition, 73 338 people were killed in the earthquake in Pakistan (2005) and 72 210 in heat waves in Europe (2003).

"The number of catastrophic events has more than doubled since the 1980-1989 decade. In contrast, the numbers of affected people have increased at a slower rate. This may be due to better community preparedness and prevention," said Debarati Guha-Sapir, Director of CRED.

Wahlström said that disaster risk reduction is an indispensable investment for earthquake-prone cities and communities.

"Seismic risk is a permanent risk and cannot be ignored. Earthquakes can happen anywhere at any time."

The eight most populous cities on earthquake fault-lines are Tokyo, Mexico City, New York, Mumbai, Delhi, Shanghai, Kolkata and Jakarta.

She said that disaster risk reduction strategies must be incorporated in the reconstruction of Haiti to minimise loss of life and destruction of key installations such as hospitals in future disasters.

The small Caribbean nation was rocked by a 7.0-magnitude quake on January 12 2010 that devastated the capital, Port-au-Prince, and affected an estimated one third of its population of 9 million.

Separately, the IMF Executive Board said that it had on January 27 2010 completed the sixth and final review under Haiti’s Extended Credit Facility and approved an SDR 65.5 million (equivalent to about US$102 million) augmentation to the facility, that will help Haiti cope with the aftermath of the earthquake.

With the approval of this additional financing, a total of US$114 million will be disbursed by the end of this week, constituting the largest amount made available so far to the Haitian authorities after the earthquake, the IMF said.

IMF MD Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that the earthquake, aside from the human tragedy, represented a "major setback" for the Haitian economy, "following several years of progress in maintaining macro-economic stability, resuming growth, and implementing essential structural reforms".

In 2009, Haiti’s economy grew by almost three per cent, the second highest growth rate in the Western Hemisphere. In June 2009, Haiti received US$1.2 billion in HIPC/MDRI debt relief.

"Haiti’s needs are massive and pressing. The international community has responded fast and has already mobilized substantial resources for the relief and recovery effort. The Fund’s augmentation under the Extended Credit Facility provides urgently needed cash resources to the government, which will allow the authorities to acquire emergency imports without depleting Haiti’s reserves, Strauss-Kahn said.

In Bulgaria, a bank account has been opened for donations for earthquake-hit Haiti during a charity campaign entitled, Haiti Is No Film - You Join Too, organised by the Bulgarian Red Cross, according to a report by Bulgarian news agency BTA.

The account is: Unicredit Bulbank AD, IBAN: BG 64 UNCR 76301078 6609 13, BIC: UNCRBGSF, Bulgarian Red Cross.