Of the 100 cities worldwide most vulnerable to environmental hazards all but one are in Asia, and most are in India or China, according to a risk assessment published yesterday.
Across the globe, more than 400 large cities with a total population of 1.5 billion are at “high” or “extreme” risk due to some mixture of life-shortening pollution, dwindling water supplies, deadly heat waves, natural disasters and climate change, the report found.
The sinking megalopolis of Jakarta – plagued by pollution, flooding and heat waves, with worse to come –topped the ranking, while two other Indonesian cities are in the top 10: Surabaya (fourth) and Bandung (eighth). Pakistan’s two biggest urban agglomerations, Karachi (12th) and Lahore (15th), are not far behind.
But India, home to 13 of the world’s 20…