19 June 2013 – With thousands of people in the Marshall Islands without access to safe drinking water, the head of the United Nations office for disaster risk reduction today warned that Pacific small islands are threatened by drought and need to incorporate mitigation measures into their national planning and risk assessments.
“The worsening situation in the Republic of the Marshall Islands is a strong warning for the whole of the Pacific of the potential suffering that drought brings, particularly as many [of the region’s] islands have limited water supplies,” said the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s (UNISDR) Asia-Pacific head, Jerry Velazquez.
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Source: UN News Centre