A figure that breaks the record. Natural disasters cost 380 billion dollars to the world economy in 2011, announced on the 5th of March the special representative of the UN Secretary General for natural disasters prevention. The Japanese earthquake, of its own, and the tsunami and the nuclear incident that followed, provoked damages evaluated at 2010 billion dollars by the UN.
This total amount is the "minimum" evaluated and overtakes the 2005 last record of 75%, the year when the hurricane Katrina laid waste to the United States, specified the UN representative, Margareta Wahlström.
"PROPORTIONAL" DECLINE OF THE NUMBER OF VICTIMS
In 2011, the seism in Japan and in New-Zeeland, floods in Thailand and in Central America, weighted the bill down. "Earthquakes are the natural disaster that cost the most" underlined Ms Wahlström during a press conference, organized to "celebrate" the first anniversary of the Japanese catastrophe, on the 11th March 2011.
"The number of victims tends to drop, because countries improve their surveillance and alert systems", she explained. "But the economic impact of natural disasters becomes a new but major threat for many countries, because of the coasts they lead to."
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