LONDON (AlertNet) – On U.N. International Disaster Reduction Day, analysts say that hurricanes, blizzards and a gas leak were the big events that made them think twice in 2004.

Natural disasters -- earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, droughts, storms, fires and landslides -- killed around 83,000 people in 2003, according to the U.N.’s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR).

In addition to their grief, over 254 million survivors of these catastrophes had to cope with homelessness, losing their income, and the destruction of their local infrastructure.

They also had to deal with the likelihood that having lived through one disaster, their communities were more exposed to others, such as famine and disease.

Disasters triggered by nature’s wilder outbursts tend to hit the poor hardest, and these recurrent setbacks keep them in poverty.

Despite the work of the U.N. and other international agencies during the Decade for Disaster Reduction, 1990-2000, the world has become a more dangerous place in terms of natural disaster.

Three times as many people around the world were affected by disasters in 2003 in comparison with 1990, while the number of incidents rose from 261 to 337 over the same period.

During the last 12 months, an earthquake in western Iran claimed more than 30,000 victims, floods throughout South Asia killed thousands and wiped out people’s means of earning a living, there was drought in southern Africa, and a season of Caribbean hurricanes killed over 3,000 people in Haiti alone.

AlertNet asked top disaster reduction experts about the lessons from the disasters of the past 12 months, and what planners still needed to learn.

Dr. Ben Wisner, Visiting Professor of Environmental Studies, Oberlin College

We saw technological disaster when a gas well in China blew out and poisoned the air for thousands around it.

We also saw the painfully slow recognition of genocide in Darfur, Sudan and perhaps 2,000 killed by floods and landslides in Haiti as hurricane Jeanne passed by. Finally, there were disruptive and dangerous blizzards in the Andes.

What did we learn? First, we learned how tightly coupled technological and natural risk is, and how in rapidly urbanising industrialising countries such as China, a huge backlog of safety questions are begging to be answered.

Second, we were reminded of how deeply buried in political history is the kind of land degradation that led to such high mortality in Haiti.

Third, we saw again, as in the case of Rwanda, that the international community is not yet capable of swift, efficient protection of lives in humanitarian emergencies.

Finally, the snow (and extreme cold) in the Andes brought our attention to the many of hundreds of small disasters each year that constitute development failures and affect people’s lives of people, but are never counted as disasters.

Professor Bill McGuire, Benfield Professor of Geohazards and director, Benfield Hazard Research Centre, University College London

The particularly high level of hurricane and typhoon activity over the last year has provided a taster of the sort of natural catastrophes that will increasingly take centre stage as climate change really starts to bite.

Recent findings show that levels of carbon dioxide -- the main greenhouse gas -- are rising twice as quickly as they have in recent decades.

This suggests that within decades we could face a dramatic rise in meteorological hazards related to accelerated warming, with the potential for floods and windstorms to wreak increasing damage and exact ever higher death tolls.

Response is an admirable and required part of disaster management, but only through adequate and effective preparedness are we going to have any chance of reducing the impact of climate-related hazards in the coming decades.

Sálvano Briceño, director of the U. N. Secretariat on Disaster Reduction

The lessons we learnt from the last 12 months show that reducing risk and vulnerability to natural hazards is becoming increasingly urgent as a priority for authorities as well as for educational institutions and the media.

The last tropical cyclone season in the Caribbean and Asia reminds us of two things: firstly that extreme weather events continue to devastate lives and livelihoods, but secondly that some countries and communities have good early warning and preparedness systems to confront these hazards.

Too often, it is the poor countries that are ill prepared and subject to a human, social and economic impact from which they will take much longer to recover.

Climate trends are likely to make these events more frequent and more devastating in the future.

However, wherever hurricanes or typhoons caused a major disaster, the combination of a degraded environment, unplanned urban growth and poorly organised and vulnerable population is to blame.

These are all development related conditions. We know very well that an informed, well-organised and healthy community in a well-managed environment is capable of reducing such loss of lives and livelihoods.

Planners need to work together in team with all relevant sectors in society and focus on raising awareness with the public, who will in return put pressure on political and economic leaders to make the difference.