UN: Worldwide deaths, economic losses caused by disasters jump in 2008

Source: Xinhua | 01-23-2009 07:56

A, Jan. 22 (Xinhua) -- The number of deaths and economic losses worldwide caused by natural disasters increased dramatically in 2008 compared with the 2000-2007 yearly average, the United Nations said on Thursday.

In 2008, 321 disasters killed 235,816 people, affected 211 million others and cost a total of 181 billion U.S. dollars, according to figures released by the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR).

The death toll in 2008 was three times more than the annual average of 66,812 for 2000-2007 and was mainly caused by two major events: Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar (138,366 deaths) and the Sichuan earthquake in China (87,476 deaths), the agency said in a statement.

Disaster costs in 2008 were twice the 81 billion-U.S.-dollar annual average for 2000-2007 and mainly attributed to the Sichuan earthquake in China (85 billion U.S. dollars) and hurricane Ike in the United States (30 billion U.S. dollars).

Asia remained the main affected continent in 2008. Nine of the top 10 countries with the highest number of disaster-related deaths were in Asia.

However, the number of people affected by disasters in 2008 was below the 2000-2007 annual average of 231 million.

Only 42 million people were affected by floods compared to 164 million in 2007. Nevertheless, floods remained one of the most frequent disaster events in 2008 along with other weather-related disasters.

"The dramatic increase in human and economic losses from disasters in 2008 is alarming," said Salvano Briceno, director of UNISDR.

He stressed that losses could have been substantially reduced if buildings in China had been built to be more earthquake-resilient and an effective early warning system had been implemented before Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar.

Editor:Zhang Pengfei