Geneva: Earthquakes triggered the
deadliest disasters of the past decade and remain a major
threat for millions of people worldwide who live in some of
the world`s mega-cities, the United Nations said on Thursday.
A study said nearly 60 per cent of about 780,000
people killed by disasters in 2000-2009 died during
earthquakes.
But climate events affected far more people -- nearly
three quarters of the two billion hit by catastrophes.
Storms accounted for 22 per cent of the overall death
toll while extreme temperatures claimed 11 percent of lives
lost in 3,852 disasters over the period.
Officials and researchers also maintained their alarm
over climate or weather-related disasters as the overall
number of catastrophes more than doubled compared to the
previous decade.
The global bill for disasters reached USD 960 billion
according to the study by the Centre for Research on
Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) at Belgium`s Catholic
University of Louvain.
"Earthquakes are the deadliest natural hazard of the
past 10 years and remain a serious threat for millions of
people worldwide as eight out of the 10 most populous cities
in the world are on earthquake fault-lines," said Margareta
Wahlstroem, UN Special Representative for Disaster Risk
Reduction.
PTI
