| How To: Rescue people trapped in a collapsed building |
 NAIROBI, 8 October 2009 (IRIN Global) - When an earthquake strikes a town, or a building is levelled by an explosion, news footage invariably shows search and rescue teams trawling through the rubble looking for survivors. But what does it take to rescue people trapped under tons of concrete?
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PHILIPPINES: Flood survivors face misery and hardship |  MANILA, 29 September 2009 (IRIN Asia) - Evacuation centre volunteer Candy Regadillo calls on a long line of hungry and tired flood survivors to be patient as she hands out dwindling relief items, three days after flooding in Manila and surrounding areas left more than half a million displaced and nearly two million affected.
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PHILIPPINES: More than 70 killed in Philippine floods |  MANILA, 27 September 2009 (IRIN Asia) - At least 70 people died and more than 270,000 were driven from their homes in the wake of Tropical Storm Ketsana, according to the country’s National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC).
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INDONESIA: Officials fear rising death toll after Java quake |  BANGKOK, 2 September 2009 (IRIN Asia) - At least 15 people died in a powerful earthquake, which struck off Indonesia’s populous island of Java on 2 September, officials said. “At least 15 people are confirmed dead. The death toll could be much higher. The area is quite remote and communication is limited,” Health Ministry crisis centre chief Rustam Pakaya told IRIN from Jakarta, the capital.
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PHILIPPINES: Disaster prevention is better than cure |  MANILA, 14 August 2009 (IRIN Asia) - When Typhoon Marakot struck the Philippines’ main island of Luzon last week, a faulty dyke was breached, leading to massive flooding and displacing thousands.
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AFGHANISTAN: Plans to end cave dwelling in Bamyan |  BAMYAN, 4 August 2009 (IRIN Asia) - Authorities in Bamyan Province, central Afghanistan, plan to end cave dwelling, which has been practised by hundreds of destitute households for decades, through land distribution. However, some cave dwellers say they need more than a piece of land to build a house.
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AFGHANISTAN: Unsafe housing puts Kabul residents at risk |  KABUL, 15 July 2009 (IRIN Asia) - Most people in the Afghan capital Kabul live in illegal, unplanned and sub-standard houses that are prone to natural disasters and lack water and sanitation facilities, according to government officials.
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AFRICA: Military munitions storage increasingly unstable |  JOHANNESBURG, 14 July 2009 (IRIN Global) - The growing number of accidental explosions in military arms and ammunition storage facilities across Africa has highlighted the need for minimum standards in stockpile management in the continent, says a South Africa-based think-tank.
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GLOBAL: Urban poor and hungry burgeoning unnoticed |  JOHANNESBURG, 13 July 2009 (IRIN Global) - The number of poor and food-insecure people in developing countries is increasing more quickly in urban areas than in rural areas, and could be dropping off the policy radar, says new research by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).
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GLOBAL: UK donor policy stokes concern of overpromising |  DAKAR, 8 July 2009 (IRIN Global) - Aid analysts applaud the “courage” of the UK government’s just-released development policy paper (link), which detailed plans to allocate at least half of all new bilateral funding to fragile states, but question how the government can do the job well without shrinking other aid commitments.
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