"Education is essential for reducing children risks to disasters," says Salvano Briceno, director of the UNISDR secretariat in Geneva.

"Children are the future mayors, architects, builders, schoolteachers and citizens of tomorrow. If we teach them about disaster risk reduction from an early age, they will understand why it is vital to build houses, schools and hospitals in safe locations, to have early warning systems in place and reduce disasters."

Children will learn how the location and construction materials can make a difference when disaster strikes and how early warning systems, evacuation plans and education can save lives and livelihoods.

The game called "Stop disaster game" is a free online game aimed at children aged 9 to 16. It has been produced by Playerthree, an English company and can be downloaded from Internet in less than three minutes.

Players have different types of missions to accomplish within a specific budget and time limit before a simulated hurricane, earthquake, flood, tsunami or wildfire strikes. They have to choose between five scenarios with three levels of difficulty and the winners will be the ones who save more people and livelihoods.

The online game is an educational tool that contains a number of teacher packages, fact sheets and videos which will allow children, teachers and parents to further understand the importance of disaster risk reduction.

The English version is being launched yesterday but a multilingual version will be released during a major event on the International Disaster Reduction Day on October 10 this year.

The UNISDR previously produced another board game called 'Riskland' aimed at children aged 6 to 10. The game has been a very successful educational tool and has been translated into many local languages and can be available at www.unisdr.org.