Preventive Resettlement of Populations at Risk of Disaster - GFDRR

in the event of an earthquake (due to movements of the
tectonic plates). In the 20th century, there have been 12
earthquakes, an average of one every eight years (IDB –
Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2004).
Of the various disasters the country has experienced,
those with the severest social and economic impacts
were the 1976 earthquake, which killed 23,000 people
and caused damage estimated at 17.9 percent of the
GDP; Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which killed 268 and
caused a 4.7 percent decline in GDP; and Tropical Storm
Stan in 2005, which affected 27 percent of the population.
Table 6.1 summarizes the impact of those events.
Table 6.1. Record of High-impact Natural Disasters until 2008
Recent disasters Date Number of
People Killed
Number of
People Affected
Economic Losses
(US$ Million)
Earthquake February 1976 23,000 375,000 1 200
Hurricane Mitch November 1998 268 743,000 876
Tropical Storm Stan October 2005 669 3,500,000 983
Source:
- Earthquake in 1976: US Agency for International Development (USAID), 1978. “Disaster relief case report: Guatemala – earthquake February 1976”,
Washington.
- Hurricane Mitch: IDB. 2002. Central America after Hurricane Mitch. The Challenge of Turning a Disaster into an Opportunity. In: www.iadb.org
- Tropical Storm Stan: USAID. 2006. Response to the Stan Disaster.
4. Risk Management
The Guatemalan authorities’ concern with regard to vulnerability
and procedures for mitigating the impact of
disasters increased in the wake of the three mentioned
above. However, the response models differed in each
case due to historical and other special circumstances.
In the 1970s, management typically consisted of decisions
taken in a vertical chain of command involving the
military, with no participation by the population (with
respect to the 1976 earthquake). Toward the end of the
20th Century, the response to Hurricane Mitch focused
on reconstructing physical infrastructure, but still within
a vertical decision-making process. The private sector
participated but the community did not. Finally, in the
first decade of the 21st Century, the current model of
reconstruction with transformation was developed. This
model not only allowed society to participate in decision
making with a cultural and gender perspective, but
also emphasized reconstruction of the social fabric, respect
for human rights, the incorporation of risk management
into sustainable development, and application
of the subsidiary-with-solidarity principle.
The historical transformations in Guatemalan society
and the cumulative effect of the disasters fostered a longer-term
vision of risk prevention and management and
helped strengthen the country’s legal and institutional
framework in those areas. Although much remains to
be done, the basis for a sound and strategic approach to
risk management has been laid.
4.1 Hazard and Vulnerability Studies
A critical factor for disaster risk management was the
inadequate understanding of the natural and social dynamics
that generate hazards. To overcome that shortcoming,
since the end of the 1990s (post Hurricane
Mitch), several studies were conducted. The most notable
were a 2001 review carried out with United Nations
support on disasters and at-risk zones, and a 2005 study
on social and environmental vulnerability, by the Institute
of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment
of the Environmental and Agricultural Sciences Faculty
of the Rafael Landívar University, which lists the major
steps needed to reduce vulnerability.
In 2004, with Inter-American Development Bank support,
Guatemala began applying the risk management
indicators system, which made it possible to gauge the
country’s vulnerability and risk and, on that basis, identify
effective risk-management measures that considered
macro-economic, social, institutional and technical
factors.
Chapter 6 The First Tz´utujil City of the Twenty-First Century | Guatemala |
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