CRED: Disaster data for 2009

In 2009, 328 natural disasters were recorded in the EM-DAT database. They killed more than 10 thousand people, affected nearly 113 million others and caused almost 35 billion US$ of economic damages.

No mega-disasters occurred in 2009, the event ranking highest in death toll being the earthquake in Indonesia on September 30 which killed over 1,100 people, followed by a series of typhoons and floods that caused many deaths, making Asia once again the most affected continent. In fact, six of the top ten countries with the highest number of disaster-related deaths were in Asia. However, when looking at the top 10 countries in terms of number of deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, the Islands of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga topped the list.

Compared to previous years (2000-2008), there is a reduction in 2009 in disaster mortality with 10,443 killed, which is below the annual average of 85,541; as well as the number of affected, with 112.8 million compared to the annual average of 230.4 million. In terms of economic impacts, disasters costs were also below the 93.8 billion 2000-2008 annual average and were mainly attributed to winter storm Klaus which hit France and Spain in January (5.1 billion US$), the L’Aquila earthquake in Italy in April (2.5 billion US$) and a tornado in the United States in February (2.5 billion US$).

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