Turning disaster into opportunity

WHEN the Indian Ocean tsunami reached Myanmar's coast in 2004, the Moken people had already sought safety on higher ground.

- By Yevgeniy Zhukov

They had no written records of tsunamis. What guided them were oral histories of an ancient wave stories passed through generations that saved lives centuries later.

Across Asia and the Pacific, traditional methods have long helped communities endure disasters. In flood-prone regions, houses were built on stilts. Along storm-battered coasts, homes were made low-slung and flexible, easy to rebuild after being blown apart. Families kept food safe in granaries or buried in underground pits.

Resilience was once woven into daily life. Modernity, in many ways, has disrupted that knowledge.

Sprawling cities now stretch into disaster-prone areas, built in ways that magnify risk. And when calamity strikes, recovery too often means little more than replacing the precarious structures that were lost: houses rebuilt on flood plains, power lines strung across fragile poles, schools reopened in unsafe buildings. Communities remain trapped in a costly cycle of destruction and repair.

The price tag is staggering. On average, disasters cost countries across Asia and the Pacific more than $100 million in damage every day. The long-term effects are worse. Disasters hit the poor hardest, often trapping them in poverty. For emerging markets that aspire to join Asia's economic miracle, the lost potential is incalculable.