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

Table 4 Total amount of disaster estimated damage, by continent, by year and by level of human development
(2000 to 2009) – in millions of US dollars (2009 prices)
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Total
Africa 1,243 805 436 6,455 1,908 38 244 782 863 173 12,947
Americas 6,800 15,946 15,386 25,085 74,679 189,370 7,226 16,625 64,162 13,337 428,616
Asia 27,108 15,687 15,855 27,630 75,332 30,494 24,873 35,747 117,927 15,449 386,102
Europe 22,176 2,395 40,283 21,415 2,072 17,261 2,584 22,796 4,644 10,789 146,414
Oceania 668 696 2,601 691 627 241 1,368 1,488 2,506 1,726 12,612
Very high human
39,272 16,087 60,332 50,959 122,083 192,144 11,694 46,461 64,178 24,655 627,865
development
High human development 2,259 3,952 3,328 2,907 7,058 14,607 2,041 11,564 6,360 2,412 56,488
Medium human
8,370 15,421 10,842 27,178 24,878 30,641 22,557 18,922 119,537 14,234 292,579
development
Low human development 8,094 69 60 233 600 12 3 489 27 173 9,760
Total 57,995 35,528 74,561 81,277 154,619 237,404 36,295 77,436 190,102 41,474 986,691
Source: EM-DAT, CRED, University of Louvain, Belgium
In 2009, Europe accounted for 26 per cent of damage, above its 15 per cent
average of the decade.
Very high human development countries experienced 59 per cent of damage in
2009, compared to 64 per cent for the entire decade.
Inversely, the contribution of medium human development countries to the
total amount of damages climbed to 34 per cent, up from 30 per cent for the
decade.
Windstorm Klaus, in France, was the costliest disaster in 2009 (more than US$
3 billion reported damages), but it appears only at the 51st place in the ranking
of the most expensive disasters.
See note on UNDP’s Human Development Index country status in the section on
disaster definitions in the introduction to this annex.
As mentioned in the introduction, damage assessment is frequently unreliable.
Even for the existing data, the methodologies are not standardized and the
financial coverage can vary significantly.
Depending on where the disaster occurs and who reports it, estimations may
vary from zero to billions of US dollars. The total amount of damage reported in
2009 was the third lowest of the decade, after 2001 and 2006.
Inversely, in Oceania, the amount of damages was the third highest of the
decade, after 2002 and 2008.
World Disasters Report 2010 – Disaster data
ANNEX 1
169