A calamity is inevitable unless we change.

International assistance tends to reach its peak in the immediate aftermath of a disaster.

We commend the local communities, which were the first to respond following the disaster.

The result has been a disaster in Africa, with farm productivity stagnant for decades.

Practically the entire population of Belarus was exposed to radioactive iodine for several months after the disaster.

Nearly a year has passed since the disaster, but the situation in the Maldives has not eased.

Roosevelt waited to act until after the catastrophe, and he has been revered as a savior.

The disaster showed the importance of heeding the warning signs, coming together in advance of the calamity and sustaining a collective effort to end human misery and lay solid foundations for peace and development.

3. should give double salaries to the door keeper and lift maintenance workers, all these are highly risky jobs and they probably have to take all the blame when disasters happen.

But there is also a higher risk of disaster, owing to a seemingly inborn human tendency to extrapolate past returns.

Even today, 60 years after the cataclysm, it is difficult to find words for the suffering, the pain and the humiliation of the victims.

Before the disaster, Japan issued about 1.5 billion in earthquake related catastrophe bonds as a risk management device the debt is canceled if a precisely defined seismic event occurs.

And, though the Russian diplomatic initiative (based on a joint proposal with Iran) averted this disaster, everything has its price.

A failure in both would be disastrous even if the major emerging market countries have attained self sustaining growth.

But America s extraordinary efforts to rein in Israel might not be enough to avert a calamity.

Soon after the disaster, the government announced that reconstruction demand and higher prices would bring about relatively rapid economic recovery.

However, since we cannot prevent the disaster or predict its magnitude, the recovery process is therefore of paramount importance.

Add a higher bar for government bailouts, and these stronger incentives would induce private financial institutions and investors to take responsibility before disaster strikes.

It s not surprising that those who helped create the problems and didn t see the disaster coming have not done a masterly job in dealing with it.

It also demonstrated that developing countries still do not have wide access to such solutions, not only during the disaster response phase, but also during the more important preparedness phase of the disaster cycle, which invariably results in unnecessary loss of life and property when disaster strikes.

Our assessments enabled our headquarters in Geneva to issue the first preliminary appeal for support just eight hours after the disaster struck.

After the disaster of August 1922 and the rout of the Greeks by Mustafa Kemal's forces, the remnants of the Greek Army revolted in September, and the government was deposed.

Even now, almost 20 years after the disaster, the entire range of post Chernobyl problems continues to be a heavy burden on the shoulders of the people of Belarus.

Polish adventurers entered the town of Pripyat in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and turned on lights for the first time since the 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

In fact, out of a total of 800 million in pledges, only 17 million has been disbursed one year after the disaster.

Consequently, relying on low failure probabilities, national policies, the caution of private actors, and monitoring by regulators seems to be insufficient to prevent catastrophe.

How can we meet the challenge of effective relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction, as well as pre disaster warning and preparations? That continues to the responsibility of the United Nations.

People are willing to donate hundreds of millions of dollars to help people after a disaster even after a disaster in a wealthy country like Japan but are unwilling to invest anything like the same amount to save lives before a predictable disaster strikes.

Voltaire actively rejected Leibnizian optimism after the natural disaster, convinced that if this were the best possible world, it should surely be better than it is.

We are meeting here today to discuss ways and means of mitigating to the greatest extent possible the impact of the substantial damage suffered by the affected countries. We cannot remain idle, waiting for similar disasters to happen.

The US ambassador to Indonesia, Cameron Hume, is actively trying to prevent a catastrophe. So far, there has been insufficient support from senior US officials.

The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl 20 years ago this month, even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, efforts focused on search and rescue, bringing clean water, food, clothing, medical care and shelter to survivors, and identifying and burying the vast number of dead.

Disaster and Development

However, after the disaster of the Soviet rocket engine project of 1942, Joseph Stalin recalled Arkhip Lyul'ka among other scientists working on jet engines to resume their work in Moscow.

I am sorry for this catastrophe I am sorry for this calamity

Insurance policies that clearly specify the amounts that will be paid and the types of damage that will be covered are far better than the government administered, after the fact bailout that many people seem to have expected.

We recognize as well that a culture of disaster prevention and resilience, and associated pre disaster strategies, which are sound investments, must be fostered at all levels, ranging from the individual to international levels.

Disaster beckoned.

Global Disaster Recovery

Then came the Nakba, the Calamity.

To avoid catastrophe, the world community must also meet the urgent emergency food and planting requirements mentioned above, including more generous budget and balance of payments support for low income food importing countries.

64 years of a catastrophe called Israel.

When protests against President Bashar al Assad s authoritarian regime first broke out in 2011, few could have imagined the catastrophe that Syria would suffer. The war has claimed more than 200,000 lives and devastated Syria s social and economic fabric.

But the truth is that it is sheer dumb luck not statesmanship, good professional management, or anything inherently stable about the world s nuclear weapon systems that has let us survive so long without catastrophe.