The second Wednesday of October each year is set-aside for the International Day of Disaster Reduction. This year it falls of the 8th Oct. The purpose of this day is to raise awareness, internationally, of the ongoing importance of disaster risk reduction.

A year like 2008 only highlights the urgency of this need. This year will probably go down in history as a year with one of the highest numbers of victims of natural catastrophes (Munich Re).

The largest number of events ever recorded in one year, was 960 in 2007. Most of these were weather related and generated