Yoshi Shimizu/ International Federation, Sierra Leone 2001

Chapter 8 - summary
Disaster data: key trends and statistics

While the total number of all disasters (both “natural” and technological) reported during 2001 was lower than the previous year, at 712 events it still represents the second-highest total of the decade. The number of geophysical disasters has remained fairly constant, but the past two years have seen the highest number of weather-related disasters reported over the decade.

A total of 39,073 people were reported killed by disasters in 2001. While this was nearly double the figure for the previous year, it was lower than the decade’s annual average of around 62,000. Last year, earthquakes proved to be the world’s deadliest disasters, accounting for over half the year’s toll. Much of this can be attributed to the quakes which hit the Indian state of Gujarat in January 2001. Over the decade, however, hydro-meteorological hazards have claimed 71 per cent of all lives lost to disasters.

From 1992-2001, countries of low human development (LHD) have accounted for just one-fifth of the total number of disasters, but over half of all disaster fatalities. On average 13 times more people die per reported disaster in LHD countries than in countries of high human development (HHD). Over the decade, different kinds of disaster have proved deadly in different continents. In the Americas, floods accounted for 45 per cent of all deaths from disasters. In Asia, drought/famine claimed 58 per cent. In Europe, earthquakes claimed 58 per cent, while in Oceania, tidal waves claimed 66 per cent. Surprisingly, Africa’s deadliest disasters were transport accidents – claiming 45 per cent of the decade’s deaths.

Last year, a total of 170 million people were reported affected by disasters – below the decade’s average of 200 million. Earthquakes affected more people during 2001, 19 million, than any other year of the decade. Meanwhile drought/famine affected over 86 million people last year, many of those living in central and south Asia. Weather-related disasters have been the most pervasive in the past ten years. Drought/famine accounted for 82 per cent of all those affected in Africa, 48 per cent in Oceania and 35 per cent in the Americas. Meanwhile, floods accounted for 69 per cent of all those affected in Asia. And windstorms accounted for 36 per cent of those affected in the Americas, and 33 per cent in Europe.

The total amount of estimated damage (direct damage to infrastructure, crops, etc.) inflicted by disasters during 2001 was US$ 24 billion – the decade’s lowest and well below the annual average of US$ 69 billion. Over the decade, earthquakes have proved the most expensive of disasters, costing the world US$ 238 billion in damage alone – without even measuring the effect on economies. Around half of this figure, however, can be attributed to one event – the 1995 quake in Kobe, Japan. Globally, floods and windstorms are very nearly as costly as earthquakes.

Disasters can have a devastating effect on the development of poorer nations. In Honduras, for example, Hurricane Mitch put the country’s economic development back 20 years. In 1998, an El Niño year, Peru suffered storm damage to public infrastructure estimated at equivalent to 5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). In 1999, losses from earthquakes in Turkey and landslides in Venezuela cost these countries equivalent to 10 per cent of their GDP.

Over the past 30 years, the impacts of natural disasters have changed dramatically. Deaths from natural disasters fell from nearly 2 million in the 1970s to just under 800,000 in the 1990s. But numbers reported affected by natural disasters rocketed from just over 700 million in the 1970s to nearly 2 billion in the 1990s.

The reasons behind these statistics are complex and need further analysis. However, the drop in fatalities can be attributed in part to better disaster preparedness. In 1970 a cataclysmic cyclone killed half a million people in Bangladesh. Following that catastrophe, the Bangladesh government supported by the Red Cross and Red Crescent initiated the Cyclone Preparedness Programme (CPP). In the 1990s alone, the CPP successfully evacuated 2.5 million people into emergency shelters before cyclones hit – and very probably saved their lives as a result.

Many factors are likely to be contributing to the increase in those reported affected by disasters. The profile of vulnerability is changing. As more people move into urban areas and slum settlements, they are increasingly living in the path of disaster. Traditional coping mechanisms are being eroded as families fragment and communities disperse. Environmental degradation is increasing the negative effects of floods, windstorms and droughts. While disaster preparedness measures are helping save lives, the failure to reduce risks more broadly may be contributing to the higher numbers of disaster-affected people. Better reporting of the numbers of disaster-affected people may contribute to the higher figure. And the definition of “affected” is open to interpretation.

These global figures disguise some serious discrepancies between the continents. Apart from Africa and Europe, the rest of the world reported substantial increases in the numbers of disaster fatalities in the past two decades. For Oceania, deaths tripled from one decade to the next, while for Asia deaths were up 41 per cent and for the Americas up 32 per cent. Meanwhile, the figures for those affected have more than tripled in Europe and increased 12-fold in Oceania.

Official development assistance (ODA) from members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) slipped to US$ 53.7 billion during 2000, the latest year for which statistics are available. This represented a drop of around US$ 2.7 billion from aid disbursements during 1999.

Expressed as a percentage of donor countries’ gross national product (GNP), ODA remained static during 2000 at 0.39 per cent. Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Luxembourg were the most generous donors, meeting or exceeding the United Nations (UN) target of 0.7 per cent. The United States stayed at the bottom of the pile, donating one-tenth of 1 per cent of its US$ 10 trillion GNP in aid.

Emergency/distress relief from DAC donors fell from the decade’s high of US$ 4.4 billion in 1999 to US$ 3.6 billion in 2000. However, 2000’s figure was still the second highest of the decade. The biggest donor was the United States, which accounted for one-third of all emergency aid donations. Earlier this year, the UN’s secretary-general, Kofi Annan, called on governments to raise an extra US$ 50 billion a year in ODA (effectively a doubling of world aid) to improve the chances of attaining the international development goals of 2015. The Monterrey finance for development conference in March 2002 failed to produce a doubling in aid pledges. But some of the world’s biggest donors made moves in the right direction. The European Union agreed to boost its aid budgets by US$ 7 billion by 2006. And the United States pledged to increase foreign aid spending by 50 per cent, or US$ 5 billion, in the three years from 2004.

Jonathan Walter, editor of the World Disasters Report, was principal contributor to this chapter. Data were supplied by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).