A study by researchers of Columbia University in New York suggested that Bangladesh and Nepal are some of the world’s most vulnerable countries as far as natural disasters are concerned.

They found that the world’s most vulnerable countries, including Bangladesh, Nepal, Burundi, Haiti and Taiwan, have more than 90 percent of their people at a ‘high risk’ of death for two or more types of disasters.

Although many of these areas were already known to be in danger, the report provides a more sophisticated method to compare risks across countries and regions, allowing governments and aid agencies to prioritise their resources, said Maryvonne Plessis-Fraissard, director for transport and urban development of the World Bank. ‘Before, we did not have the big picture.’

The lending agency plans to use its hotspot map to identify countries in most need and help them implement a preventive, rather than a reactive, mechanism to disasters. According to the Nature magazine, the team led by Maxx Dilley of the World Bank broke down most of the globe into 8 million grid cells of about 25 square kilometres each.

They then mapped the risks of human and economic damage from six types of disaster, such as cyclones and landslides, in each of the grids and built a picture of the world’s high risk areas.

Monday’s earthquake off Indonesia painfully illustrated that natural disasters often strike the same place repeatedly. Researchers have now ascertained areas that are most at risk, in a study that could help countries and aid agencies plan for future catastrophes.

But past data alone cannot predict future disasters. And these simple data sets do not reflect different countries’ population densities and wealth, which affect their vulnerability, said Maxx Dilley of Columbia University, the lead author of the study.

Much of the damage and death that disasters cause is preventable by building earthquake-proof structures. But repeated hits lock many of the world’s developing countries into a cycle that makes it difficult to fund changes, especially because much of the available aid goes into immediate relief efforts.

The World Bank also intends to encourage governments to invest in measures such as flood embankments and cyclone shelters with loans to countries planning for better disaster management.

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