CRED Crunch Newsletter, Issue No. 70 (April 2023): Disasters Year in Review 2022

This CRED Crunch newsletter details the disaster-related events of 2022. During this period , the Emergency Event Database EM-DAT recorded 387 natural hazards and disasters worldwide resulting in the loss of 30,704 lives and affecting 185 million individuals. Economic losses totaled around US$ 223.8 billion. Heat waves caused over 16,000 excess deaths.

The total of 387 catastrophic events in 2022 is slightly higher than the average from 2002 to 2021 (370). The occurrence of each type of disaster was also close to the average levels in the last two decades. In 2022, the total death toll of 30,704 was three times higher than in 2021 but below the 2002-2021 average of 60,955 deaths, the latter being influenced by a few mega-disasters, such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake (222,570 deaths). For a more useful comparison, the 2022 toll is almost twice the 2002-2021 median of 16,011 deaths.