Philippines is the 3rd most-disaster prone country

The Philippines placed third among countries in the world most frequently pummeled by natural calamities last year, a report from a non-government disaster monitoring agency said Tuesday.

Citing records of the US-based Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, the Citizens' Citizens' Disaster Response Center said the Philippines was hit 14 times by natural disasters last year, behind India and China.

However, this number was down by as much as 46 percent compared to the 2009 data -- from 26 (year 2009) to 14 (year 2010). The Philippines used to top the list in 2009, when the country was visited by disastrous storms Ondoy and Pepeng.

By Virgil Lopez