MUNICH, Germany, Jan 11 (AFP) - Megacities such as Tokyo and Miami are extremely vulnerable not only to natural hazards, such as earthquakes and hurricanes, but also to technological risks, environmental hazards and terrorist attacks, the world's biggest reinsurer Munich Re said on Tuesday.
Megacities, with 10 million or more inhabitants, "are exposed to all the classic risks, but their exposure and vulnerability are disproportionate," Munich Re wrote in a special study published Tuesday.
"They create risks of new dimensions -- megarisks. Conurbations in coastal areas could be threatened by tsunamis, for example. Tokyo and Miami are instances of megacities in areas with major earthquake and hurricane exposures respectively," said board member Stefan Heyd.
A concentrated effort needed to be made to improve risk prevention and control in future, the reinsurer said.
"The losses that may be caused by natural hazards, technological risks, terrorism and even epidemics must be identified and modelled in advance. This is the only way to ensure that the enormous range of megacity risks can be insured on a sustainable basis."
Munich Re has been documenting and analysing natural disasters for the past 30 years and publishes an authoritative annual "natural catastrophe" report at the end of each year.
Munich Re speakers are scheduled to attend the United Nations' World Conference on Disaster Reduction, in Kobe, Japan, from January 18 to 22.
Kobe was hit directly by a massive earthquake on January 17, 1995, in which more than 6,000 people died. With economic losses of more than 100 billion dollars, the Kobe earthquake was the most expensive natural disaster ever.
01/11/2005 14:47 GMT - AFP