The Korea Times
When floods tore through parts of Bangladesh last year, families had little time to react. In some communities, water rose so quickly that parents were forced to make impossible decisions in a matter of minutes: which children to carry first, which belongings to leave behind, whether to stay and protect what they owned or flee before roads became impassable. By the time humanitarian responders arrived, many families had already lost homes, livelihoods and any sense of stability. What makes stories like these so heartbreaking is that while natural hazards are not always avoidable, many of their worst human consequences are. The warning signs were there: weather patterns, flood modelling, local vulnerability data, population movement trends. The world increasingly possesses extraordinary amounts of information that can help us understand where crises are likely to emerge and which communities are least equipped to withstand them. Yet too often, that information exists in fragments. Governments may hold climate forecasts, humanitarian agencies track displacement, development institutions map
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