According to calculations by Munich Re, natural catastrophes caused global damage of 110 billion dollars in the first half of the year. According to a statement from the reinsurer on Thursday, that was slightly less than in the first half of 2022, but well above the average of $98 billion over the past ten years.
The worst natural disaster so far this year was the earthquake in the Turkish-Syrian border area in February, which claimed an estimated 58,000 lives and caused damage of 40 billion dollars. The devastating earthquake is also the main reason why the number of fatalities caused by natural disasters rose to 62,000 in the first half of the year, according to Munich Re the highest number since 2010.
In second place, with a total of 35 billion dollars, are very high losses from severe thunderstorms and tornadoes in the USA. “Meanwhile, damage from severe thunderstorms in the United States of this magnitude appears to be normal and no longer an outlier,” the company wrote in its statement.
Earthquakes are not related to climate, but storms are. “The year 2023 was already characterized in the first half of the year by record temperatures in many regions of the world, very high water temperatures in various ocean basins, droughts in parts of Europe, for example, or extreme forest fires in north-eastern Canada,” said Ernst Rauch, the company’s chief geoscientist . Munich Re has been documenting natural disasters worldwide for decades, as this is an important basis for calculating insurance premiums.
