Disaster READY Annual Report 2022-23 Timor-Leste

This report covers Disaster READY’s achievements and challenges in Timor-Leste in the first year of the program’s second five-year phase.

Timor-Leste is a small and mountainous country with a population of 1.3 million people. Flooding is the most frequent disaster impacting Timor-Leste, and the country is ranked 16th on the 2021 World Risk Index. Communities are particularly vulnerable to flash-flooding caused by monsoonal rains.

Subsequent landslides and erosion are only enhanced by the country’s steep topography and widespread deforestation. Climate change is already impacting the people of Timor-Leste, and climatologists predict that the weather in Timor-Leste will become hotter and drier, leading to harsher and more drawn-out drought conditions, causing heavier and more erratic rainfall, and increasing flooding and landslide hazards.

In January 2023, a 7.6 magnitude earthquake hit northern Australia and was felt in Timor-Leste. There were no reports of damage or tsunami risk. A magnitude 6.2 earthquake hit the Banda Sea in May 2023 and was felt in northern Australia and Timor-Leste. Again, there were no reports of damage or tsunami risk.