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FACTBOX: World disaster facts and figures
05 Oct 2005
 Source: AlertNet

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•  Disaster risk reduction

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The World Disasters Report, published by the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, shows the number of people killed in disasters rose dramatically last year while the number of those affected fell. Following are some facts and figures.

  • The death toll from natural and technological disasters in 2004 soared to 250,000 – more than three and a half times the annual average of 67,000 for the last decade. The increase was mainly due to the Indian Ocean tsunami.

  • The number of people affected by disasters dropped to around 146 million, lower than the annual average of 258 million recorded over the past decade – 90 percent of them in Asia.

  • The cost of damage was estimated at US$100-145 billion, depending on which database is used.

  • The biggest killers by continent in the last decade, excluding conflict- and disease-related deaths, were transport accidents in Africa (49 percent of all those killed); floods in the Americas (46 percent); earthquakes and tsunamis in Asia (42 percent) and Oceania (67 percent); and extreme temperatures in Europe (51 per cent).

  • Two-thirds of industrial accidents occurred in China, 70 percent of them in mines. Almost 60 percent of transport accidents were due to road traffic.

  • The U.N. Development Programme has distributed wind up radios to fishermen in Vietnam so they can receive early warnings of oncoming windstorms while at sea.

  • Donors admit just $1m could have contained the locust threat to West Africa in July 2003, but delays in response meant 100 times more money was needed to address the consequences. The problem was not so much lack of information but lack of communication.

  • Official development assistance from the 22 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) was $78.6 billion for 2004. This is on average 0.25 percent of all DAC donors’ gross national income.

  • The only countries to exceed the U.N. target for official development assistance to be 0.7 percent of GNI are Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

    See also: Post-tsunami chaos wastes aid
    Information is a life-saver, says disasters report
    PHOTOS: Disasters around the world
    TIP SHEET: How to ‘sell’ forgotten emergencies
    VIEWPOINT: Communication is a lifeline
    Global disaster death toll soared in 2004-Red Cross
    FACTBOX: How warnings save lives



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