(Catastrophes like Japan's 2011 tsunami cost the world more than $3.5 trillion over the last 30 years, a conference heard yesterday, as the World Bank called for better disaster planning.

Policymakers meeting in Sendai, the main city in Japan's tsunami-ravaged northeast, were told that infrastructure and education in emerging economies should be designed to minimise the human and financial cost of natural disasters.

"We need a culture of prevention," said World Bank (Croup President Jim Yong Kim, as the Bank said insurers estimated the economic cost of disasters in the last three decades had topped S3.5 trillion.

"No country can fully insulate itself from disaster risk, but every country can reduce its vulnerability. Better planning can help reduce damage and loss of life from disasters, and prevention can be far less costly than disaster relief and response."

Kim was speaking after he and IMF managing director (Christine Lagarde toured part of Japan's northeast coast that was pummeled by the huge tsunami in March last year.

The tour took in parts of Japan's northeast where huge waves swept ashore, crushing whole communities and killing almost 19,000 people, despite well-drilled plans in a country prone to earthquakes and tsunamis.

Kim said the World Bank can learn from Japan’s disaster management and reduce the price of calamities in other parts of the world.