and prone to failures of governance including corruption. We will see that all of these factors may play a role in the outcome of greater natural disaster fatalities in developing countries. In turn, this suggests a number of recommendations for countries regarding construction practices, public mitigation measures and regulation.

_<u>Box 3: Less damage is done by disasters in rich countries because of code enforcement</u>_ <mark>It is a repeated finding in the literature that fatalities resulting from an earthquake are inversely proportional to the level of per capita income (Anbarci, Escaleras and Register, 2005). This is in large part because of the widespread adoption of proactive measures to reduce disaster mortality introduced in developed countries since the Second World War. As codes improved in the developed world building collapse during earthquakes became less frequent. In Kobe, buildings constructed after a 1981 revision of Japan’s building codes were far less likely to collapse in the 1995 earthquake than older buildings. And all of the reinforced concrete buildings which saw story collapse (particularly likely to kill occupants) were built prior to a 1971 code change regarding beam and column ductility (Ghosh, 1995). Similarly, Wharton (2008) notes that within the US, houses in one county hit by hurricane Charley in 2004 saw insurance claim frequencies that varied dramatically depending on if they had been built before or after 1996, when new wind-resistant standards were introduced. Homes built after 1996 had a 60 percent lower claim frequency than those built before 1996.</mark>

# **Individuals, Unprompted, Do Little to Prepare for or Insure Against Natural Disasters**

Worldwide, absent legal requirements, individuals are unlikely to take even fairly simple measures to reduce disaster risk. In South Florida, where hurricanes are frequent, it appears that many residents fail to take short-term preparatory measures such as securing bottled water and filling their cars up with gas when storms threaten. Only 17 percent of people surveyed living along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts in the US suggested that they had taken steps to storm-proof their home in 2006 (Wharton, 2008). In 1974, a survey of California homeowners in earthquake-prone areas found that only 12 percent of respondents had adopted protective measures against earthquakes, and the figure was, if anything, lower by 1989. Similarly, even after the Marmara earthquake, willingness of householders to pay for earthquake-proof retrofitting in Turkey, even using subsidized credit, was low (World Bank, 2005).<sup>4</sup> The market value attached to risk-reduction measures also appears to be limited. While it appears that housing rents in Tokyo are lower in areas of high risk of earthquake damage, and that rents for buildings in high-risk areas constructed prior to strengthened earthquake codes are lower still, the evidence suggests that retrofitting would still only make financial sense for building owners because of a considerable government subsidy (Nakagawa, Saito and Yamaga, 2007). (Furthermore, given that high risk areas are on historically swampy ground traditionally home to the poor, and older buildings are likely

> 4 Even those who do respond to calls for preparedness unsurprisingly favor preparations that are easier to make (moving furniture) over more time-consuming and expensive measures such as structural alteration (Mileti et. al., 1992).

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