CRED CRUNCH
Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED)
Université catholique de Louvain
30.94 Clos Chapelle-aux-Champs, 1200 Brussels, Belgium
www.cred.be
,
contact@emdat.be
2009
2000-2008
yearly average
No. of country-level disasters
328 392
No. of countries affected
111 119
No. of people killed
10,443 85,541
No. of people affected
112.8 mil.
230.4 mil.
Economic damages (US$)
34.9 bil.
93.8 bil.
Natural disasters
1
in 2009: summary
1.The CRED CRUNCH newsletter does not include epidemics and insect infestations as natural
disasters unless explicitly stated
Human
impact in 2009
10 most affected countries
Economic impact in 2009
10 most affected countries
Natural disasters in 2009
In 2009, 328 natural disasters were recorded in the EM-DAT
database. They killed more than 10 thousand people, affected
nearly 113 million others and caused almost 35 billion US$ 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 at-
tributed 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$).
Even if 2009 appears as a relatively quiet year, we cannot draw
conclusions based on one single year. Individual major events
happening in a specific year can influence disaster statistics, as
was already shown by the disastrous losses caused by the earth-
quake in Haiti in early 2010. Longer-term statistics on disaster
occurrence and impacts can shed light on the underlying trends.
Debarati Guha-Sapir
Director, CRED
All figures presented in the CRED CRUNCH come from "EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database”
Issue No. 19
“Disaster Data: A Balanced Perspective”
February 2010
No. of people killed
No. killed/100,000
inhabitants
India
1,733 Samoa
81.5
Indonesia
1,466 American Samoa
51.4
Philippines
1,362 Tonga
8.7
Taiwan (China)
630 El Salvador
4.5
China P Rep
561 Namibia
4.4
Australia
535 Bhutan
3.3
Peru
429 Taiwan (China)
2.7
Viet Nam
356 Australia
2.5
Italy
323 Solomon Is
2.0
El Salvador
275 Sierra Leone
1.9
No. of people affected
(million)
No. affected/100,000
inhabitants
China P Rep
68.7 Guatemala
18,382
Philippines
13.6 Namibia
16,555
India
9.0 Philippines
15,000
Bangladesh
4.6 Taiwan (China)
10,044
Viet Nam
3.8 China P Rep
5,183
Guatemala
2.5 Zambia
4,872
Taiwan (China)
2.3 Viet Nam
4,312
Brazil
1.9 Honduras
4,145
Indonesia
1.0 American Samoa
3,782
Zambia
0.6 Paraguay
3,416
In absolute amounts
(US$ billion)
As percentage of
the GDP
United States
9.1 Samoa
28.7
China P Rep
4.2 El Salvador
4.4
France
3.2 Tonga
3.6
Italy
2.6 Lao P Dem Rep
1.9
Indonesia
2.0 Burkina Faso
1.9
Spain
1.9 Fiji
1.6
Australia
1.5 Viet Nam
1.2
Japan
1.4 Honduras
0.7
Viet Nam
1.0 Philippines
0.6
Switzerland
1.0 Nepal
0.5
Please note that disaster data are subject to change as validation and cross-referencing of the sources is undertaken and as new
information becomes available. For any enquiries please contact
contact@emdat.be
or visit
www.emdat.be
CRED News
• CRED is pleased to present the 2010 Summer Course on Assessing Public Health in Emergency Situations (APHES).
This course will take place on July 5-16, 2010 in Brussels, Belgium. More information at:
http://www.cred.be/
Aphes/
.
• The CE-DAT team recently published an article in The Lancet: Degomme O., D. Guha-Sapir (2010). Patterns of mortality
rates in the Darfur conflict, The Lancet, 375: 294-300. Available at:
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/
PIIS0140-6736%2809%2961967-X/abstract
• The MICRODIS Project has been awarded a one year extension (02/2010 - 01/2011) to continue its work on inte-
grated natural disaster assessment and disaster data analysis in Asia and Europe (
www.microdis-eu.be
).
• Discover the recently published CRED paper "Disaster in India: Policy overview of vulnerability, risks and human
impacts", Guha-Sapir D., Hoyois P. (2010), in: Recovering from earthquakes: Response, Recovery and impact mitigation in India,
(edited by S.B. Patel and A. Revi), Routledge: New Delhi, pp.14-38.
Number of disaster events by continent 2009
Disaster mortality by continent (%) 2009
Disaster economic costs by continent (%)
Disaster occurrence by disaster type
2009 vs 2000-2008 average
Number of reported disasters per country in 2009
Hispaniola: same island, 2 country profiles
10 most recent natural disasters that occurred in both countries
Philippines
26
China P Rep
23
United States
16
India
13
Indonesia
12
Brazil
10
Australia
7
Mexico
7
Bangladesh
6
Viet Nam
6
Africa
Americas
Asia
Europe
Oceania
17
30
22
176
1
18
108
6
15
392
10
22
23
147
1
30
84
2
9
328
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
Drought
Earthquake
(incl.
tsunami)
Extreme
temperature
Flood
Mass mov.
dry
Mass mov.
wet
Storm
Volcano
Wildfire
Total
Average 2000‐2008
2009
Date
Disaster Type
Killed Affected
Killed
Affected
September 2008 Hurricane Hanna
529
48,000
1
10,745
August 2008 Hurricane 'Gustav'
85
73,006
8
6,257
August 2008 Tropical Storm 'Fay'
10
220
4
20
December 2007 Tropical Storm 'Olga'
3
2,090
33
61,605
October‐November 2007 Tropical Storm 'Noel'
90
108,763
129
79,728
August 2007 Hurrican Storm 'Dean'
9
3,966
1
1,600
May‐June 2007 Flood
2
12,500
9
16,000
March 2007 Flood
14
15,014
3
3,830
October 2005 Tropical Storm 'Alpha'
12
2,192
9
1,000
September 2004 Hurricane 'Jeanne'
2,754
315,594
11
14,009
Total
3,508
581,345
208
194,794
Haiti
Dominican Republic
60
73
132
47
16
7%
11%
68%
6%
8%
0%
33%
34%
28%
5%