PORT-AU-PRINCE (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Claude Enrico survived the earthquake that hit Haiti five years ago and helped pull people from under the rubble in the flattened capital Port-au-Prince.

Now he is dedicated to saving more lives in the disaster-prone Caribbean country.

Lying on two fault lines and in the path of hurricanes, Haiti is among the countries most at risk from natural disasters in the world, including floods, tsunamis and drought.

The 7.0-magnitude earthquake on Jan. 12, 2010, which killed more than 220,000 people, was a wake-up call to the government and international aid agencies about the dire need to protect Haitians from disasters and build resilience among communities to withstand shocks.

"We have to learn to live with natural phenomena," said Enrico, 37, a civil protection officer with Haiti's interior ministry. "It's inevitable they will come year after year. So we must train people what to do in an emergency and ensure families have an evacuation plan."

NETWORK OF VOLUNTEERS

He belongs to a network of 3,000 newly trained volunteers and paid staff, created in the aftermath of the earthquake, who work across Haiti's 10 provinces.

Trained in first aid and emergency response, they are on the frontline of government efforts to ensure Haiti is better prepared to deal with disasters and can save more lives.

"We still lack equipment, firefighters and more people need to be trained. But communities are more aware about how to keep safe. One of our key messages is to tell people not to cross rivers during a flood because that's often how people get killed," said Enrico at the National Emergency Operations Centre (COUN) in downtown Port-au-Prince.

Built in 2010 following the earthquake, the center is where government ministries and aid agencies meet to coordinate disaster response. The center, which includes a warehouse stocked with water, mattresses, hygiene and food kits, has been put to the test.

A cholera epidemic broke out in October 2010, which has claimed the lives of more than 9,000 people, followed by several tropical storms, including Hurricane Sandy, which killed 54 and forced 100,000 Haitians to evacuate their homes in 2012.

"In Haiti, it's the back-to-back accumulation and combination of disasters that puts pressure on the government and the people," said Thomas Pitaud, chief technical advisor to the government on national disaster risk management systems.

Each year in parts of Haiti, homes and animals are washed away, fields inundated, and food crops and grazing land destroyed by storms and floods, pushing up food prices.

With 60 percent of Haiti's population of 10 million living on less than $2 a day, even a small increase in food prices can mean families cannot afford to put enough food on the table.

DISASTER PREPAREDNESS

Five years after the earthquake, aid agencies say progress has been made in preparing communities on what to do when a disaster strikes, including early warning systems, simulation exercises and identifying shelters.

Other projects include building flood walls and drainage ditches, along with embankment and watershed protection projects to conserve water supplies and lessen the impact of floods and landslides.

But such schemes, along with the efforts of Haitians like Enrico, can only go so far to reduce the high exposure to disasters Haiti faces.

Far less progress has been made on reducing the risk of disasters in the first place, and ensure all new homes, hospitals and schools being built are earthquake resistant.

"You have an environment that's very degraded," said Pitaud, who also works for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Haiti.

"We're constantly responding from one catastrophe to another, so it's difficult to focus on reducing risk over the long-term and get funding."

URBAN SLUMS

A lack of urban planning and high levels of urbanization have led to more than 60 percent of Haitians living in densely populated slums in Port-au-Prince, which magnifies the damage and number of casualties disasters bring.

Angelique Hilaire lives with her three children in a gray brick one-room home perched precariously on a hillside slum.

Hilaire is only too well aware that she is exposed to flooding and landslides but has no option but to brace herself for the yearly hurricane season.

"I can't afford to rent anywhere else," she said. "Every time it rains I pray to God for it to stop. But what can I do?

Even a short downpour can leave the capital flooded as piles of rubbish on the streets and debris filled canals block drains, which exacerbates flooding.

Natural disasters linked to climate change will only get more frequent and extreme in the future, experts say.

Decades of deforestation have left Haiti even more exposed to natural disasters, with less than three percent of its original forest cover still intact, according to the UNDP.

This causes soil erosion and reduces the ability of soil to retain water, making Haiti more vulnerable to flooding and landslides. During heavy rainfall, there are few trees to stop water washing down the bare mountains.

While 5.5 million tree seedlings have been planted in Haiti by the UNDP since 2010, not enough has been done to stop people cutting down trees in the first place.

Selling charcoal, which comes from burning wood, is used for cooking and is a key source of income for many Haitians living in the countryside.  

"One challenge is to provide economic opportunities so farmers don't have to cut down trees," Pitaud said.

Life would be a lot better if we can just shoo away typhoons, plug the craters of volcanoes to prevent them from erupting, or hold the plates underneath us to keep them from shaking the ground and toppling buildings and ripping highways apart.

These terrifying and unwanted events and their terrible impact – thousands of lives lost, families displaced, and livelihood disrupted – are parts of the normal life in the Philippines, a country situated in the Pacific Ring of Fire and in the path of typhoons.

Climate change has only worsened our situation, with experts predicting more extreme weather disturbances as the new normal. A recent example of our vulnerability to weather’s whims was the visit of Pope Francis to Leyte last Saturday. He was scheduled to spend almost half a day in Tacloban and Palo to celebrate a Mass, meet with the victims of super-typhoon Yolanda, and lead other activities, but rain and strong winds from Mekkhala/Amang, the first tropical storm of 2015, forced him to fly back to Manila after less than an hour in Leyte.

The Pope, who told the Yolanda victims he knew what happened in November, 2013, even though he was in Rome, got a firsthand taste of what Filipinos, particularly those in Eastern Visayas, have to go through throughout their lives. Each year, 18 to 20 typhoons strike the country.

The Philippines is also located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where most of the world’s volcanoes are located. Countries on the “ring” – Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, United States, Canada, Chile, Mexico, Russia, and the Philippines – account for most of the earthquakes that happen in the world. The memories of the 2011 earthquake that triggered a tsunami, caused a nuclear meltdown and killed nearly 16,000 people are still fresh in the minds of the Japanese. The areas affected by the nuclear disaster remain ghost towns.

The magnitude-7.2 earthquake that hit Bohol on October 15, 2013, was weaker than the magnitude-9.0 that hit Japan, but it was one of the strongest recorded in the Philippines, leaving more than 200 people dead and destroying many historical churches.

The Philippines has more than 30 volcanoes, of which more than 20 are considered active, and a few, like Mayon and Taal, are permanently monitored. Mount Pinatubo, which for many centuries was just a part of the mountainous part of Zambales, erupted in 1991, and its effects were felt worldwide: The massive amount of gas and ash caused a temporary half-degree centigrade drop in global temperatures. The millions of tons of lahar spewed out of the volcano permanently changed the river system in parts of Central Luzon.

The US Embassy in Manila, recognizing the risks from natural calamities faced by Americans visiting or living in the Philippines, has published on its website information to help US citizens “prepare for any disaster that may occur.

The key word is “preparation.” In my view, successful preparation means a system backed up by the most accurate disaster information like weather forecasts, which in turn, can happen if we have the most advanced technology and equipment.

We have a pool of competent and well-trained weather forecasters, volcanologists, and other scientists (that is why some of them are pirated by foreign entities), but they need the best equipment and the latest technology to do their task well.

As a country prone to disasters, we should be the leader in weather or disaster forecasting and monitoring. The price for a nation ill-prepared for disasters is too stiff to pay: Thousands of lives lost, families displaced, vital facilities destroyed and economic growth disrupted.

We saw the terrible destruction wrought by super typhoon Yolanda in 2013. In 2014, timely preparations reduced the disastrous impact of typhoon Ruby, which was initially expected to become another super-typhoon.

Yet, we still count casualties and measure damage: Ruby left P5.09 billion worth of damage and 18 dead. Typhoon Seniang, a weak typhoon that hit the country in the last days of December, brought heavy rains and triggered floods, leaving 66 people dead and more than 100,000 families displaced.

These are continuing wake-up calls and reminders for the government to modernize our weather and disaster forecasting equipment and technology. Because of our situation, our objective and attitude should be that the Philippines should be the leader in this field.

In closing, I share the gladness of my countrymen and their deep appreciation for the visit of Pope Francis in the Philippines.