The World Weather Organization sees a multiplication of natural disasters in the world caused by weather and climate. The comparison with the 1970s is clear.
Geneva – The number of weather- or climate-related disasters has increased significantly since 1970. Between 2000 and 2009 there were five times as many as in the 1970s, as the World Weather Organization (WMO) reported in Geneva on Wednesday. Storms and floods make up almost 80 percent of these disasters.
Hurricane “Ida”, which just swept over the south coast of the USA, could be the most expensive such disaster of all time, said WMO General Secretary Petteri Taalas. But it is still too early to state the extent of the damage. So far, the hurricane “Katrina”, which devastated New Orleans and the surrounding area in the USA in 2005 and caused damage of almost 164 billion dollars (around 139 billion euros).
The floods in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate in July caused insurance losses of around seven billion euros, according to estimates. 180 people were killed.
A total of around 11,000 disasters were reported between 1970 and 2019. More than two million people were killed. Damage totaled 3.6 trillion dollars (adjusted for inflation, around three trillion euros). The number of weather-related disasters per decade rose from 711 (1970-1979) to 3536 (2000-2009). From 2010 to 2019, 3165 disasters were registered.
Disasters also get worse with climate change
The WMO has evaluated data on storms, floods, droughts or extreme heat events and forest fires. They account for about half of all natural disasters and 45 percent of deaths. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, for example, are not taken into account.
Such disasters are becoming more frequent and more intense due to climate change. “That means more heat waves, droughts and forest fires like we saw recently in Europe and North America,” said WMO General Secretary Petteri Taalas. “We have more water vapor in the atmosphere, which increases extreme rainfall and deadly floods. The warming of the oceans has influenced the frequency and geographic location of the strongest tropical storms. “
While the disasters with the greatest damage occurred in the United States because of the dense population and relatively expensive infrastructure, developing countries mourned 91 percent of the fatalities. The six most expensive disasters happened in the USA: In addition to “Katrina” in 2005, there were about Hurricane “Harvey” in 2017 (97 billion dollars) and Hurricane “Maria” in the same year (70 billion dollars).
Droughts and cyclones
According to victims, the worst disasters of the past 50 years were the 1983 drought in Ethiopia and cyclone “Bhola” in 1970 in Bangladesh, each with an estimated 300,000 deaths. Among the ten disasters with the most deaths are the drought in Sudan in 1983 (150,000 deaths), cyclone “Gorky” in 1991 in Bangladesh (almost 139,000 victims) and cyclone “Nargis” in Myanmar in 2008 (138,000 victims).
According to WMO statistics, the number of weather-related disasters decreased from 2010 to 2019 compared to the previous decade, from 3536 to 3165. The decrease is due to the size classification by the University of Leuven in Belgium, which keeps the disaster register, said WMO boss Talaas . If the threshold is set lower, it is clear that the number is increasing continuously.
The WMO and the United Nations as a whole are supporting countries in setting up early warning systems. But more must be invested in this area. Because more people in more countries can now be warned of approaching storms at an early stage, the number of fatalities has fallen significantly. In the 1970s there were a total of 55,600 deaths, from 2010 to 2019 there were 18,500. dpa
