Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, drought, frequent typhoons and floods: in the Philippines, natural disasters are almost a part of everyday life. Most recently, Typhoon Yagi, locally called Enteng, has caused rivers to flood their banks and set off landslides, killing at least 15 people. This is the fifth typhoon to lash the Philippines since May.

Katrin Radtke, a senior researcher specializing in disaster preparedness at the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, said the Philippines is rated as a "very high risk" country. She is the scientific lead of the annual World Risk Report, published jointly by the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict and an alliance of nine German development organizations, Bündnis Entwicklung Hilft. The technical report has a World Risk Index, which breaks down the disaster risk of 193 countries.

The Philippines tops this year's ranking of high-risk countries, followed by Indonesia, India, Colombia, and Mexico. "These countries are affected by extreme natural disasters that are very frequent and have a high intensity," Radtke told DW. "We call this a high exposure."

But the frequency and intensity of storms, earthquakes and droughts are not the only decisive factors — another is a country's vulnerability to natural disasters. "That's........

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