Amid growing concern that climate change may bring more natural calamities, the international community highlighted the need to boost measures and investment on disaster risk reduction at a U.N. conference that began Saturday in Sendai.
More than 5,000 participants, including government leaders and high-level officials from around the world, were expected to attend the five-day meeting in Tohoku, which was severely damaged by the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami, and ensuing nuclear crisis, three days after Japan marked the fourth anniversary of the unprecedented calamity.
During the once-in-a-decade U.N. World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, delegations from over 160 countries are slated to adopt a new action plan aimed at mitigating the impact of disasters to replace the Hyogo Framework for Action that covered the past 10 years.