BEIJING, Oct. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- In recent decades, China has become the third hardest-hit country in the world in terms of losses sustained from natural disasters, a Chinese official said here Wednesday.

    "In the past decade, China has gone up to third ranking, after Japan and the United States, in terms of disaster-induced losses,"said Li Xueju, minister of civil affairs, noting that economic losses caused by disasters in the country exceeded two trillion yuan (247 billion US dollars).

    This year in China, 1,796 lives have been lost and 15.16 million people have had to be displaced due to extreme natural phenomena. Economic losses have reached 183.9 billion yuan so far,according to Li.

    The past year has reminded people everywhere that nowhere in the world is immune from natural calamities, from the massive Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami to the drought- and locust-ravaged countries of Africa, from the devastation caused by hurricanes and cyclones in the United States, the Caribbean and the Pacific to the earthquakes in India and Pakistan.

    The ministry therefore launched a series of activities ranging from emergency drills to disaster reduction education, in an effort to enhance civic awareness on the occasion of the International Day for Disaster Reduction, which falls on Wednesday.

    The theme of this year's International Day for Disaster Reduction is: "Invest to prevent disaster." Enditem