Natural disasters have a profound impact on the quality of life through their destruction of food crops and livestock, and forced dislocation of households and communities. Their toll on lives and the instant poverty they cause are among their most devastating impacts.

The Asian and Pacific region is one of the most vulnerable to natural disasters, experiencing a wide variety of natural hazards, including floods, cyclones, earthquakes, drought, storm surges and tsunamis. The effect of natural hazards on the loss of human lives is directly linked to the poverty level of a given country.

The region accounts for a majority of the total number of deaths caused by natural disasters globally. In 2006, for example, natural disasters claimed 13,276 lives in the Asia and the Pacific (table 28.1). This was twice the number of deaths in Africa — the region with the second highest toll due to natural disasters — and far above the 3,000-plus deaths in Europe. While natural disasters do not recognize borders or distinguish between income levels, in Asia and the Pacific it was the high-income economies that were the least affected in terms of both deaths and the number of persons affected.

According to some estimates, the number of natural disasters has been increasing around the world, but the trends in lives lost and damage caused have changed in recent years due to effective use of technology, communication and transportation systems. Over the past five decades, the average number of deaths caused annually by natural disasters was about 100,000; in contrast, the average over the last 15 years has been about 41,000.

Tropical cyclones occur more frequently in the Asian and Pacific region than in any other part of the world and are usually accompanied by severe flooding.

While cyclones affect most of the Asian and Pacific region, they have taken a particularly high toll on South Asia. Bangladesh is commonly affected by floods and wind storms, which contributed to the high number of deaths in that country during the periods 1996 to 2000 and 2001 to 2005 while affecting over 30 million people. A strong wind storm in April 1991 was largely responsible for the
high number of deaths (145,400) in Bangladesh during the period 1991 to 1995. Moreover, severe flooding during the periods 1991 to 1995 and 2001 to 2005 were responsible for a high number of deaths in Pakistan and India.

Geological disasters can be very destructive in terms of human lives, as was the case with the October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, which claimed more than 70,000 lives and affected another 5 million people. That single disaster accounted for most of the deaths that occurred in Pakistan during the period 2001 to 2005.

According to information from the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), the highest loss of life in South Asia has been caused by drought. In September 2001, more than a million people were affected by a drought in Sri Lanka, and, during the summer of 2002, more than 300 million people were affected by a severe drought in India.

The December 2004 tsunami claimed the highest number of lives in recent history, as shown by data of affected countries in table 28.1. Consequently, the number of deaths caused by waves and surges ccounts for 61 per cent of the total number of deaths in South-East Asia.

Floods and storms are the second cause of deaths in South-East Asia, mainly affecting Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Recurrent floods in Indonesia contributed to the high cumulative number of people affected between 2002 and 2006. In the Philippines, storms stand as the most common cause of death as well as the number of people affected by natural disasters.

Drought and wildfires also affect the region. Wildfires in Indonesia in October 1994 affected up to 3 million people, while Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Thailand have suffered the effects of severe drought in recent years, and this has contributed to the high number of people affected during the period 2001 to 2005. The economic impact of wildfires has been particularly negative in many of these countries.

In North-East Asia, typhoons and floods have had the most significant socio-economic impact, accounting for about 80 per cent of deaths and 60 per cent of total damage. Floods throughout China repeatedly affected its citizens during the 1990s. In the summer of 1998, floods affected close to a quarter of a billion people in China, accounting for most of the people affected between 1996 and 2000. Floods were also responsible for a significant death toll in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 2006, when 278 people died and another 84,500 people were affected.

Figure 28.1 Major natural disaster events in the Asian and Pacific region, 1988-2007

In January 1995, a strong earthquake in Japan took the lives of more than 5,000 and affected another half-million people. Although the local infrastructure to mitigate the effects of earthquakes is highly developed, the economic cost of the disasters was still considerable.

The pattern of impacts of natural disasters in the Pacific is similar to that of other subregions. Wave/surges, wind storms and floods entail the greatest loss of life. In Fiji, wind storms affected a significant portion of the population throughout
the 1990s, and, in Papua New Guinea, a tsunami was responsible for over 2,000 deaths in July 1998. On the other hand, droughts, wild fires and extreme temperatures have affected Australia, as in 1992, when a severe drought affected over 7 million people. Extreme temperatures in subsequent years contributed to the cumulative number of people affected during the period 1991 to 1995, as reported in table 28.2.

Losses caused by natural disasters are particularly damaging in the Asian and Pacific region, depriving countries of resources that could otherwise be used for economic and social development. In some areas, the death toll and damage from such disasters have set social development back years. For this reason, national and regional efforts for natural disaster reduction should be closely linked with poverty alleviation and economic and social development activities. In this context, regional cooperation in disaster management, including infrastructure development, is essential if countries are to be able to cope with the escalating effects. It is also essential in order to help ensure the sustainable economic growth of the region.