Killer weather warning

Hell on earth has left 2million people dead  | Some 12,000 disasters in the last 50 years | Majority of deaths are due to the climate  | Countries with higher poverty are hit hardest

- DANNY HAPLIN

EXTREME weather, climate and water-related events have caused 11,778 reported disasters in the last half century.

They have killed two million people and caused trillions of dollars of economic damage, the World Meteorological Organisation has said.

More than 90% of the reported deaths happened in developing countries and economic damage from floods, storms and wildfires has soared by a factor of eight since 1970, totalling US$4.3trillion (€3.97trillion).

The number of deaths has fallen dramatically since then which the WMO said was because of improved early warning systems and disaster management.

The United States alone lost $1.7tn (€1.57tn), which accounts for 39% of the economic losses sustained between 1970 and 2021 - the years analysed in the WMO's updated Atlas of Mortality and Economic Losses from Weather, Climate and Water Extremes.