Message from the Director NEMO, St. Vincent and the Grenadines on International Day for Disaster Reduction
By National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO)
Wed, 8 Oct 2008, 15:44
Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, October 8, 2008 (NEMO) - Today we join the rest of planet earth in celebration of the International Day for Disaster Reduction. Today people everywhere are encouraged to reflect deeply on how each person’s actions can in some way help to reduce the incidents and impacts of disasters on their lives.
Disaster reduction begins with understanding the nature of hazards around us and among us. A hazard is any phenomenon or thing that poses a threat to human life, livelihood, property or the environment. The list of hazards to which the population of our country is exposed is quite long. Traditionally, we have had much experience with dealing with extended periods of heavy rainfall, flooding, landslides, storms, hurricanes, storm surges and volcanic eruptions. Additionally, we are quite exposed to exotic plant and animal disasters that can easily wipe out huge sections of our agricultural base. Like many other countries, the list of hazards that we face can be natural, biological or technological.
There are those among us who suffered great loss from the impact of these hazards. The loss of one life is an over bearing shock for our small state. And there are those who have been left homeless and without livelihoods when disasters strike.
As a first step in reducing disasters in our personal lives, let us make the effort, today and for the rest of our lives to strive to gain a sound understanding of the hazards around us; let us move decisively to reduce the risk that these hazards pose by lessening our vulnerability to each hazard. This may mean making the critical decision to relocate if we find that we are in harm’s way. We can also reduce our vulnerability to hazards by putting things in place that can lessen their impacts. The construction of retaining wall, the process of retrofitting our building to make them more resilient against specific hazards and the process of reading and researching to broaden our understanding of disasters are all ways of reducing our risk thereby reducing disasters.
Today, NEMO join the rest of the world in helping our people to gain a better understanding of disasters through our public education programme. We have secured a display booth at the National Agricultural Exhibition where over the next four days, we will showcase information sets on how to reduce disasters. We will make available a wide selection of literature on disaster reduction to all who visit our booth. We are happy to be partnering with the Seismic Research Center, UWI, St Augustine, Trinidad and our own Soufriere Monitoring Unit in this initiative.
I therefore urge all our people to commit themselves to the process of doing what is necessary to reduce disasters, starting at your home. Since disasters do not discriminate, Disaster risk reduction must be everyone’s business.
Contact
National Emergency Management Organisation
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
West Indies
Tel: 784-456-2975, ext. 550
Fax: 784-457-1691
Email: pmosvg@vincysurf.com, nemosvg@yahoo.com