More than $103 billion in economic losses due to natural disasters in 2019
In 2019, 396 natural disasters were recorded in EM-DAT with 11,755 deaths, 95 million people affected and $103 billion in economic losses across the world, according to Natural Disasters 2019, a new report by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, The Université Catholique de Louvain and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
The burden was not shared equally as Asia suffered the highest impact and accounted for 40 percent of disaster events, 45 percent of deaths and 74 percent of the total affected. India was hit hardest and recorded nearly 20 percent of the total deaths and 24.5 percent of the total number of people affected. Floods were the deadliest type of disaster accounting for 43.5 percent of deaths, followed by extreme temperatures at 25 percent (mainly due to heat waves in Europe) and storms at 21.5 percent. Storms affected the highest number of people, accounting for 35 percent of the total affected, followed by floods with 33 percent and droughts with 31 percent.