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Being prepared is key to living in areas prone to disasters, such as El Porvenir. Organising community emergency committees and providing training in essential emergency response skills such as first aid, search and rescue and shelter management, has ensured that in isolated areas local people are equipped to deal with the immediate impacts of a major weather event in the first – crucial - hours. In areas at risk of flooding, early warning systems have been set up to alert people to the immediacy of a flood. By knowing how much time they have before a flood hits, community members can seek safety for themselves, their families and their belongings and in doing so, protect themselves and prevent the losses that would have occurred otherwise. Participatory techniques have been used to analyse vulnerable areas within people’s own communities and to develop community risk maps, increasing local capacities to understand and react to risks. Reducing households’ vulnerability to certain hazards has also been achieved by relocating families from areas particularly susceptible to flooding and landslides and by building houses that are flood and earthquake resistant.
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