Naturkatastrofer kostede de asiatiske lande svimlende summer i 2011

BANGKOK, 30 December 2011 (IRIN): Natural disasters in Asia in 2011 could well prove to be the costliest ever, experts say.

– Never before has this world suffered so much economic loss due to natural disaster, most of which has been in Asia and the Pacific, Sanjay Srivastava, UN regional adviser for disaster risk reduction, told IRIN in Bangkok.

Of the global 270 billion US dollar of economic losses to natural disasters in 2011, 90 percent was in Asia, he said.

From earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan, to heavy flooding in Australia and Asia, economic losses in the first nine months of 2011 came to 259 billion dollar, of which only about 52 billion was insured (forsikrings-dækket), according to Munich Re, a global insurance company which covers natural disasters.

The 220 billion dollar of damage caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan accounted for the bulk of the losses, according to Srivastana.

In addition, “the unprecedented flooding in South-East Asian countries this year is estimated to have caused a cumulative production loss of about 6,3 billion dollar or 0,9 percent of the combined gross domestic product [GDP] of Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam,” said a 9 December statement by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the UN’s regional development arm for the Asia-Pacific region.

– The costliest natural catastrophe in Southeast Asia may be the Thailand floods with overall economic losses in the billions, said Michael Able, a spokesman for Munich Re. See Thai Slideshow on
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94474

Yet less than 9 percent of costs in the Asia Pacific region were insured, his organization says.

While economic and human risks are high due to increasing urban populations, insurance coverage in many countries in the region remains too low to effectively protect against hazards.

– Most of the burden will fall on the state which will have to cover recovery and rehabilitation, including the pressure to address the challenge of reducing future risks, said Sanny Jegillos, the UN Development Programme’s regional coordinator for disaster risk reduction.

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