Scientists estimate cost of natural disasters since 1900 to $7 trillion

In a span of one week, the world was shaken by the massive earthquakes in Japan and Ecuador and the flooding in Houston. The devastations again took its toll on human lives and damage to property which runs into billions of dollars.

Scientists from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany computed the cost of these natural disasters and came out with an estimate of $7 trillion (AUD$9 trillion) damage. It covered 115 years, beginning 1900.

By type of calamity, floods topped the list of disasters that caused the highest amount of damage, followed by earthquakes and storms, reports News.discovery.

To come up with the estimate, Dr James Daniell, risk engineer from KIT, collected computations that examined socioeconomic indicators and evaluated socioeconomic loss data through time in the database CATDAT. The data help create a post-disaster risk mode to help governments and aid organisations how to manage catastrophes and assess quickly the extent of damage.

James presented the results on Tuesday at the 2016 European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna, Austria. The KIT team collected and evaluated more than 35,000 natural disaster events since 1900 across the globe.

Based on their assessment, one-third of the economic losses were caused by floods, 26 percent by earthquakes, 19 percent by storms and 1 percent by volcanic eruptions. That is for the 115-year time frame, but since 1960, storm and storm surges had taken over the top spot and accounted for 30 percent of losses.

Daniell points out that the most vulnerable to natural catastrophes are less developed nations, in relation to its capital and population, as the post-event shows more deaths and higher economic losses. He explains it to unfollowed building quality standards, areas hit such as the coasts are the economic centres and have high populations, making financial gains or livelihoods outweigh potential disaster risks.

In terms of a single year, 2011 was the one which registered the largest economic losses as it was when the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami damaged Japan and the Christchurch tremor shook New Zealand. The KIT estimate of direct damage is $335 billion (AUD$430 billion). The twin events took the lives of 18,500 people and made another 450,000 homeless.

However, in terms of death tolls, the top three events are the Great Floods of 1931 in China which killed about 2.5 million people, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami (230,000 dead) and the 2007 Cyclone Nargus that battered Myanmar (140,000 dead).