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Asia Hardest-Hit by Disasters in 2007,
Group Says

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SWITZERLAND: January 21, 2008

GENEVA - Asia was hardest-hit by natural disasters last
year that worldwide killed more than 16,500 people and caused
US$62.5 billion in damage, a UN-backed research group said on
Friday.

There was also a marked increase in the number of floods in
2007, a trend the Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters
said reflected the threat posed by global warming.

Eight of the worst 10 disasters last year struck Asia. Cyclone
Sidr in Bangladesh in November claimed the highest toll of 4,234
lives, according to the Belgium-based centre.

"There were no real mega-disasters in 2007, which is the good
news, but economic losses were higher than the year before,"
Debarati Guha-Sapir, centre director, told a news conference in
Geneva.

"We see more extreme events overall, not geological ones like
earthquakes and volcano eruptions, but very many more windstorms and
floods," she said.

Scientists warn that climate change, blamed mainly on human
emissions of so-called greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels,
will bring extreme weather including more heatwaves, droughts,
floods and rising seas in coming years.

"Current trends are consistent with the prediction of the
Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, in that Asia and also
West Africa are already suffering from more severe and frequent
floods," Guha-Sapir said in a statement.

She said there was already a "significant increase" in floods in
2007, creating unsanitary conditions in which diseases such as
malaria, dengue fever and cholera flourish.

The 206 recorded floods last year accounted for more than half of
the world's 399 natural disasters. This compared with an annual
average of 172 floods between 2000-2006.

Nearly 200 million people worldwide were affected by disasters
last year, half of them in China, which suffered heavy floods last
June-July, it said.

Losses from natural disasters amounted to US$62.5 billion in
2007, up from US$34 billion in 2006, Guha-Sapir said, partly due to
rich countries suffering damage to costly insured structures.

An earthquake in Japan last July cost US$12.5 billion and
Europe's winter storm Kyrill caused US$10 billion in damage, it
said. Summer floods in Britain caused US$8 billion in damage, while
huge wildfires in California cost US$2.5 billion.

"These figures are a reminder of what could have been saved if we
had invested more in disaster risk reduction measures," said Salvano
Briceno, director of the Geneva-based ISDR.

An ISDR spokeswoman said that for every dollar spent on disaster
prevention, an estimated US$4-7 could be saved in reconstruction
costs.

In 2005, global economic losses from natural disasters soared to
a record US$225 billion, half of it stemming from damage from
Hurricane Katrina in the United States. (Reporting by Stephanie
Nebehay; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Story by Stephanie Nebehay

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE

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Hardest-Hit by Disasters in 2007, Group Says

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