A 6.5-magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of the South Pacific island of Vanuatu on Sunday, the Hong Kong Observatory said, but there were no reports of a tsunami warning.

The quake struck at 2210 IST around 81 kilometres southwest of the capital Port Vila. The shallow quake, which had a depth of four kilometres, was measured by the US Geological Survey as having a magnitude of 6 on the Richter scale.

IN the recently published 2011 Global Assessment Report by the UNDP, Bangladesh was found to be one of the countries 'most vulnerable' to disasters. Bangladesh is the sixth among countries that are 'most vulnerable' to natural disasters including cyclones, earthquake and tsunamis. Bangladesh ranked second among the Asian countries after the Philippines in the World Risk Index 2011 - jointly conducted by United Nations University, Germany and the Institute of Environment and Human Security.

The three-day Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) 2011 ended Sunday endorsing the importance of taking urgent action on climate change and global food crisis.
Reflecting on the unique nature of the Commonwealth, a voluntary association which brings together 53 (Fiji's membership remained suspended) developing and developed nations from six continents, the CHOGM 2011 held under the theme 'Building National Resilience, Building Global Resilience' adopted a 17-point communique.

A leading disaster watchdog has ranked Bangladesh as the world's sixth "high disaster risk country" in terms of its exposure to typhoons, earthquake and tsunamis.

The German-based United Nations University (UNU) Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) in its 'World Risk Report-2011' said Bangladesh ranked second in its risk index in Asia after the Philippines.

A key feature of the report, developed by UNU-EHS, calculates and compares risk values for 173 countries worldwide, while ranking regions and countries facing the high disaster risk.