World Disasters Report 2010 - International Federation of Red Cross ...

ANNEX 1
166
Table 1 Total number of reported disasters, 1 by continent, by year and by level of human development (2000 to 2009)
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Total2 Africa 202 184 197 170 164 170 200 181 168 146 1,782
Americas 151 134 156 126 137 139 103 133 144 111 1,334
Asia 303 295 310 294 318 359 304 257 238 225 2,903
Europe 130 96 115 96 98 127 98 104 57 75 996
Oceania 13 18 19 20 22 16 18 11 13 19 169
Very high human
131 114 132 115 106 111 98 95 85 78 1,065
development
High human development 156 125 143 124 149 145 109 132 99 107 1,289
Medium human
454 415 450 399 422 468 420 365 362 318 4,073
development
Low human development 58 73 72 68 62 87 96 94 74 73 757
Total 799 727 797 706 739 811 723 686 620 576 7,184
Source: EM-DAT, CRED, University of Louvain, Belgium
Among continents, Africa and Asia experienced their smallest number of
disasters of the decade. In the Americas and in Europe, this number was the
second lowest of the last ten years.
In 2009, the number of disasters for Oceania was the third highest of the
decade.
Numbers of disasters were at their lowest level in 2009 in countries with very
high human development and medium human development, and near their
lowest level in countries with high human development. On the other hand, this
number remained proportionaly high in countries with low human development.
With 39 per cent of all disasters, Asia remains the most frequently hit continent
and is, in 2009, just below its decade’s average of 40 per cent.
1 In Tables 1–13,’disasters’ refer to those with a natural and/or technological
trigger only, and do not include wars, conflict-related famines, diseases or
epidemics.
2 Since slow-onset disasters can affect the same country over a number of years,
it is best to use figures on total numbers to calculate annual averages over a
decade rather than as absolute totals (see the methodology chapter of this
annex).
See note on UNDP’s Human Development Index country status in the section on
disaster definitions in the introduction to this annex.
With 576 disasters, 2009 is the year with the lowest number of disasters of the
decade, far below the peaks of 2000, 2002 and 2005.