Several major earthquakes, tsunamis, extensive flooding and wildfires, and volcanic eruptions all aligned to make 2010 a record year for disaster losses and deaths. The impacts of hazards have not been felt this strongly in the past 30 years, according to numbers released by Munich Re last week.
“2010 showed the major risks we have to cope with,” stated Munich Re Reinsurance CEO Torsten Jeworrek. “The severe earthquakes and the hurricane season with so many storms demonstrate once again that there must be no slackening of our efforts to analyse these risks in detail…”
Although the hurricane season held an unusually high number of named storms, most didn’t make landfall. Instead, the sting of 2010's disasters can be attributed to the January earthquake in Haiti, major earthquakes in Chile and China, widespread floods in China and Pakistan, heat waves and forest fires in Russia, and earthquakes in New Zealand.
Although each catastrophe was devastating, some took higher financial tolls, while others claimed more lives. Below is a look at 2010, painted by the numbers.
950 "natural catastrophes", compared with an average of 785 per year for the past 10 years (Munich Re).
222,000 people killed in the Haiti earthquake, compared to an estimated 577 in Chile (U.S. Geological Survey).
56,000 deaths in Russia attributed to a combination of a heat wave, forest fire, and air pollution (Munich Re).
130 billion dollars in overall estimated losses, of which only $37 billion was insured (Munich Re).
30 billion dollars in property damage caused by the Chile earthquake. By comparison, Haiti damage was estimated to be about $7.84 billion in March—slightly more than its gross domestic product for 2009.
4 percent of the news hole devoted to Pakistan flooding August 16-22, when almost 2,000 were killed, according to The Project for Excellence in Journalism. Haiti garnered twice that nearly a month after the quake. Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which annoyed air travelers but killed no one, earned 7 percent during its most active week.
Jolie Breeden is the lead editor and science communicator for Natural Hazards Center publications. She writes and edits for Research Counts; the Quick Response, Mitigation Matters, Public Health, and Weather Ready Research Award report series; as well as for special projects and publications. Breeden graduated summa cum laude from the University of Colorado Boulder with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.