CRED Crunch Newsletter - Apr 2008

In 2007, 414 natural disasters were recorded in the EM-DAT database. They killed more than 16 thousand people, affected over 234 million others and caused almost 75 US$ billion in economic damages.

Compared to previous years, there is a reduction in disaster mortality- the third lowest of the last decade and far below the 2000-2006 period average (73,946).

With regard to the distribution of disasters over the time and therefore their impacts most of these are concentrated between June and September 2007.

Floods and windstorms remain the most important source of casualties and economic damages. They accounted for more than 86% of the overall disaster mortality and hydro-meteorological disasters accounted for more than 98% of total affected.

Download the report from Reliefweb.