Natural disasters, including earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, storms, and other events, caused damages worldwide amounting to $250 billion, with the loss of 74,000 lives in 2023.

This information was reported by the German reinsurance group "Munich Re" in the latest edition of its annual report on natural disasters, published in Munich, southern Germany. The majority of the victims were a result of a series of devastating earthquakes that occurred in Turkiye and Syria in February of the previous year.

Ernst Rauch, the Chief Geoscientist at the group listed on the German stock exchange’s DAX index, mentioned that the number of causalities represents the highest since 2010. Especially due to the earthquake in Turkiye that claimed the lives of 58,000 people.

"Munich Re" has been documenting the destruction caused by natural disasters worldwide for decades, considering the significance of this documentation for calculating insurance premiums.

The total economic losses of $250 billion averaged over the past five years. The long-term trend indicates an increase, as, after adjusting the numbers for inflation, the total losses averaged over the ten years, from 2013 to 2022, remained at $230 billion, while the average over the 30 years from 1993 to 2022 wa $180 billion.