Asia hardest-hit by disasters in 2007, group says

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) - Asia was hardest-hit by natural disasters last year that worldwide killed more than 16,500 people and caused $62.5 billion in damage, a U.N.-backed research group said on Friday.

There was also a marked increase in the number of floods in 2007, a trend the Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters said reflected the threat posed by global warming.

Eight of the worst 10 disasters last year struck Asia. Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh in November claimed the highest toll of 4,234 lives, according to the Belgium-based centre.

"There were no real mega-disasters in 2007, which is the good news, but economic losses were higher than the year before," Debarati Guha-Sapir, centre director, told a news conference in Geneva.

"We see more extreme events overall, not geological ones like earthquakes and volcano eruptions, but very many more windstorms and floods," she said.

Scientists warn that climate change, blamed mainly on human emissions of so-called greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, will bring extreme weather including more heatwaves, droughts, floods and rising seas in coming years.

"Current trends are consistent with the prediction of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, in that Asia and also West Africa are already suffering from more severe and frequent floods," Guha-Sapir said in a statement.

She said there was already a "significant increase" in floods in 2007, creating unsanitary conditions in which diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and cholera flourish.