UN campaign to ensure safety of schools, hospitals

MANILA, Philippines - The United Nations has launched a worldwide campaign to enhance the safety of one million schools and hospitals, where poor construction, an absence of safety drills and lack of emergency equipment can lead to high death toll during earthquakes and other disasters.

The One Million Safe Schools and Hospitals Campaign, sponsored by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), aims to raise public awareness and mobilize resources for a host of tasks ranging from repairing and retrofitting buildings to relocating to safer sites and constructing new safe ones where necessary, and purchasing safety equipment such as fire extinguishers and first aid kits.

“Making sure that schools, hospitals and other key public infrastructure meet certain safety standards is a key step to ensure that natural hazards do not turn into disasters,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction Margareta Wahlstrom said of the campaign launched in Manila.

The UNISDR said the statistics speak volumes with thousands of children killed when their schools collapsed in a quake in southwest China in 2008, while 17,000 children died and 2,448 schools collapsed in the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir, India.

“People in unsafe schools, hospitals and health facilities are at the greatest risk of losing their lives. Children in schools and the sick in hospitals and health facilities are the most vulnerable people in times of disaster,” the UNISDR said.

Last September, tropical storm Ondoy brought down a total of 42 primary and secondary schools in Metro Manila, with damage reaching $1.6 million.

In the same month a 7.6 magnitude earthquake in Sumatra, Indonesia heavily damaged two private hospitals and affected 270,000 other buildings.

In October, typhoon Pepeng damaged some 30 private and public hospitals and 100 health centers in the Philippines.

At the launch attended by government officials from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, UNISDR and UN World Health Organization, and other disaster risk reduction partners, pledges were sought for the Philippines and other ASEAN states.

The global action is part of the new 2010-2011 World Disaster Reduction Campaign dubbed “Making Cities Resilient” that will be launched next month in Bonn, Germany.