Globally the senior members of our communities usually feature highly in the death and injury statistics that arise from disasters. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) Head, Margareta Wahlström, stated in 2014: ‘The older person is often invisible in our communities until they show up in the mortality figures after a disaster event. Demographic change means we are living in an ageing world. It is important to include older persons in disaster management for both their improved protection and to make full use of their experience, skills and knowledge in support of that’. (UNISDR, 2014)
