Disasters caused 1.35 million deaths in past two decades

Earthquakes and tsunami accounted for 56 percent of all disaster-related deaths during the 1996 to 2015 period, or 748,543 deaths, according to the report issued by the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.

"I call on all governments to work with civil society and the private sector to move from managing disasters to managing risk," U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said in a message for the annual International Day for Disaster Reduction. "Let us move from a culture of reaction to one of prevention and build resilience by reducing loss of life."

Haiti tops the list of the most affected countries with 229,699 deaths, followed by 182,136 deaths in Indonesia, 139,515 in Myanmar, and 123,937 in China. Ninety percent of the deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries.

"The statistical trend shows that on average 327 people died per disaster in low income countries in the past 20 years, almost five times more than the average toll in high-income countries where economic losses are higher but systems are in place for early warnings and better preparedness," Debarati Guha-Sapir, head of the Center for the Epidemiology of Disasters based at the University of Louvain, Belgium, said in a statement.

Haiti's 2010 earthquake was the deadliest event of the past 20 years, taking the lives of 222,570 people. The earthquake and tsunami that struck Indonesia in 2004 came second with 165,708 deaths, followed by cyclone Nargis in Myanmar in 2008 with 138,366 deaths.

The earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March 2011 ranked 13th with 19,846 deaths.

The report covered 7,056 disasters that occurred between 1996 and 2015.

Source: Kyodo