INGENIEUR
INGENIEUR
40 % and 48 % of their respective populations living in urban areas . All regions are expected to urbanize further over the coming decades ( United Nations , 2014 ). Africa and Asia are urbanizing faster and anticipated to reach 56 % and 64 % of urban population respectively by 2050 .
Owing to rapid urbanization , many cities around the world are exposed to flooding and extreme weather especially those located in low-lying coastal zones . Slum settlements are often built on the most vulnerable land , prone to landslides , or abutting waterways in flood zones . Most of the natural disasters thought to be increasing in terms of frequency of occurrence and severity are due to climate change . Between 1994 and 2013 , 6,873 natural disasters occurred worldwide that cost the lives of 1.35 million people , with an accumulated average of 68,000 lives each year ( CREOD , 2015 ). Flooding caused the majority of disasters between 1994 and 2013 , forming 43 % of all recorded events that affected nearly 2.5 billion people worldwide . Figure 2 shows the interrelationship between climate-related disasters with the economic damages in the United States between 1950-2012 ( Leaning and Guha-Sapir , 2013 ). There were three times as many natural disasters in the 2000s than there were in the 1980s . On average , 218 million people per year were affected by natural disasters between 1994 and 2013 . While the exact costs incurred are difficult to predict for the future , an average
Numbers of people affected by climate-related natural disasters
Annual average , 1998-2007 243 million Forecast , 2015
375 million % change Increase by 54 %
Figure 3 : People Affected by Climate Disasters Worldwide ( Source : Ganeshan , 2009 ) of 375 million people per year are expected to be affected by climate-related disasters in 2015 , which is approximately 50 % more than those affected during the last decade .
NATURAL DISASTERS IN MALAYSIA
The geographical location of Malaysia is seemingly safe and less vulnerable to natural disasters . Lately however , exposure to a range of catastrophes from natural disasters has increased significantly due to climate change . The disaster and risk profile of Malaysia shows that our country is exposed to several types of natural disasters which include flood , landslide , earthquake , wildfire and storm . A statistic on the frequency of natural disasters in the country between 1990 and 2014 recorded flood as the event with the highest probability of occurrence at 62.5 %, followed by storm and landslide at 12.5 % and 8.3 % respectively as shown in Figure 4 . Nevertheless , floods and landslides recorded lower percentages of mortality compared with storm , which produced almost 40 % of the total number of deaths caused by natural disasters in Malaysia between 1990 and 2014 . Figure 4 also identifies mortality statistics caused by different types of natural disasters commonly occurring in the country between those years .
The major floods that took place in a few states in Peninsular Malaysia , particularly along the east coast , in late 2014 were one of the worst calamities that ever occurred in this country ’ s recorded history . Several areas , which had never experienced such an event before , were inundated because of unprecedented elevation of water levels . Overall , 21 people were killed and eight others are still missing after the worst flooding in decades . Kelantan was the worst hit area with more than 150,000 people left homeless with a death toll of 14 . Four people died in Terengganu and three in Pahang state . The number of people forced from their homes in the other affected states , namely Pahang , Perak , Terengganu and Johor was estimated to be around 83,570 people ( The Straits Times , 2014 ). Figures 5 and 6 show the actual condition of a few locations in Kelantan during the major flash flood in December 2014 .
As a result of these unexpected major flash
10 VOL 69 JANUARY-MARCH 2017