Disasters killed 606000 people in 20 Years

“Asia accounts for the lion’s share of disaster impacts, including 332,000 deaths and 3.7 billion people affected”.

The worst-hit countries in the past decade have been the United States, with 472 reported disasters; China, 441; India, 288; the Philippines, 274; and Indonesia, 163.

The head of UNISDR, Margareta Wahlström, said: “Weather and climate are major drivers of disaster risk, and this report demonstrates that the world is paying a high price in lives lost”. In the last twenty years natural disasters were the reason why over 600,000 people died and world economic losses were estimated to trillions of dollars.

The world has been having some nasty weather over the past couple of decades, according to a new report. The United Nations report also underlines that between 2005 and 2014, the average of weather-related disasters increased 14 percent compared to the previous period and 50 percent compared to 1985-1994.

While scientists can’t determine how many of those disasters are due to climate change, the report noted that “predictions of more extreme weather in future nearly certainly mean that we will witness a continued upward trend in weather-related disasters in the decades ahead”.

The report, The Human Cost of Weather Related Disasters, published by the United Nations to tie in with next week’s climate-change summit in Paris, analysed data from all weather-related disasters over the past 20 years, since the first climate-change conference in 1995. “The implication is that a big part of the actions for disaster risk reduction will have to be preventive in nature, in addition to those that are reactive, such as relief and rebuilding efforts”, says Lopez.

To be recorded as a natural disaster in the database, the report said an event must meet at least one of four criteria: ten or more people reported killed, 100 or more people reported to be affected, a declaration of a state of emergency, or a call for global assistance.

Asia was hit hardest with more frequent events and the largest number of people killed, since the continent has a vast and extensive variety of landmass and zones at high risk, such as flood plains and multiple river basins.

Under increased acknowledgement of climate change the need to mitigate it, the report draws attention that weather-related events are just as disastrous for humankind. Storms had the highest influence on loss of life, killing 242,000, including the 138,000 killed by Cyclone Nargis, striking Myanmar in 2008.

The amount of $1.9 trillion cost of disaster worldwide was accumulated by the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, based in Belgium.

Droughts affected over a billion people over the past 20 years, causing hunger, malnutrition, disease, and agricultural failure, the report stated.

Flooding made up an overwhelming 47 percent of these weather-related disasters. This will also cause a rise in the problems that come with them, such as death, homelessness and economic damage.

Though the report is not focused on climate change, the United Nations found that atmospheric greenhouse gas levels rose to record breaking levels in the last three decades.