2010 record year for economic costs from disasters
On Tuesday the Swiss insurance giant Swiss Re, released a study that found disasters in 2010 caused more than three times as much economic damage as 2009; last year disasters caused more than $218 billion in economic losses, the most in over thirty years; in 2010, insured losses totaled $48 billion, an increase of 60 percent from 2009; 2011 is on track to surpass 2010 as the costliest year, with massive earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand; the Japanese government estimates that the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami caused as much as $309 billion in damages
A recent report by a global insurance company found that last year disasters caused more than $218 billion in economic losses, the most in over thirty years.
On Tuesday the Swiss insurance giant Swiss Re, released a study that found disasters in 2010 caused more than three times as much economic damage as 2009.
Balz Grollimund, one of the report’s authors, said, “The number of fatalities and insured losses from earthquakes are on the rise. The main reasons are population growth, the higher number of people living in urban areas as well as rising wealth and rapidly increasing exposures.”
In 2010, insured losses totaled $48 billion, an increase of 60 percent from 2009. The report also found that disasters killed a record 304,000 people in 2010, compared to 15,000 in 2009.
The majority of the deaths were a result of the earthquake in Haiti that killed approximately 220,000.
Other significant events included a deadly summer heat wave in Russia that claimed 56,000 lives and floods in China and Pakistan which took 6,200 people.
While the Haitian earthquake claimed more lives, the earthquake in Chile was the costliest disaster causing more than $8 billion in insured damages.
2011 is on track to surpass 2010 as the costliest year, with massive earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand.
The Japanese government estimates that the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami caused as much as $309 billion in damages. It will be the costliest disaster Japan has seen since the end of World War II.
Damage estimates are expected to rise in the following weeks as current figures do not include the expenses of dealing with the continuing nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants.
Kaoru Yosano, Japan’s economic and fiscal policy minister, hopes that the costs of rebuilding will be offset by economic gains from reconstruction efforts.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced that his government plans on immediately spending ¥2 to ¥3 trillion, the equivalent of roughly $24 to $37 billion, to begin clearing rubble and constructing temporary housing. The spending is the first of several emergency budgets.
Meanwhile Swiss Re estimates that damages from the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand could cost between $6 billion to $12 billion to repair.
