The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) released its Human Cost of Disasters 2000-2019 Report on October 13, 2020.
Over the last twenty years, 7,348 disaster events were recorded worldwide claiming 1.23 million lives, affecting 4.2 billion people and costing the global economy some $2.97 trillion.
- These numbers represent a sharp increase of the number of recorded disaster events by comparison with the previous twenty years. Between 1980 and 1999, EM-DAT recorded 4,212 disasters linked to natural hazards worldwide.
- The sharp increase was largely attributable to a rise in climate-related disasters, including extreme weather events like floods, drought and storms,
- Between 2000 and 2019, there were 510,837 deaths and 3.9 billion people affected by 6,681 climate-related disasters.
- In the 20-year period between 2000 and 2019, EM-DAT recorded 7,348 disasters events, which claimed a total of approximately 1.2 million lives and affected more than 4.03 billion people. On average, there were 367 disaster events each year, the majority of which were floods and storms (44% and 28% respectively.
- Between 2000 and 2019 period, India recorded 321 disasters. Only China (577) and the USA (467) are ahead to India.
- In this period, India reported 79,732 deaths due to natural disasters.
(Source: UNDDR)
