Cred crunch, Issue no. 50, March 2018 - Natural disasters in 2017: Lower mortality, higher cost
This edition of the Cred Crunch newsletter focuses on the number and impact of natural disasters for the year 2017 and places these key loss and damage statistics in historical perspective by looking at the trends over time.
In 2017, EM-DAT data indicates that 318 natural disasters occurred, affecting 122 countries. The impact of which resulted in 9,503 deaths, 96 million people affected, and US$314 billion in economic damages.
The human impact of natural disasters in 2017 was much lower than the last 10 year average, where events with extremely high mortality occurred, such as the 2010 earthquake in Haiti (225,570 deaths) and the 2008 Nargis Cyclone in Myanmar (138,400 deaths). In 2017, there was no single major event responsible for increased mortality. This is unlike more recent years where the earthquake in Nepal (2015) killed 8,831 people and Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines (2013) killed 7,354. Still both these years had a mortality below the 10 year average.