(MENAFN- Live Mint) 2024 year-ender: Ever wondered what is the economic cost of extreme weather events? Well, the ten worst climate disasters resulted in an estimated damage of over $228 billion worldwide in 2024, a new report revealed. These disasters left over 2,000 people dead worldwide, as per the report said.

Most of these estimates are based only on insured losses , which means the actual costs incurred due to these calamities are likely to be even higher, while the human costs are often uncounted.

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The report titled 'Counting the Cost 2024 : A Year of Climate Breakdown' by Christian Aid also highlights ten extreme weather events that didn't rack up big enough insured losses to make the top ten but were just as devastating and often affected millions. These included several events in poorer countries, where many people don't have insurance and data availability is poor.

US bore the brunt

Among the biggest financial losses in 2024, the US bore half of the damage, with October's Hurricane Milton topping the list as the single biggest one-off event at $60 billion in damage and killing 25 people. Hurricane Helene which struck the US, Cuba and Mexico in September, caused damages amounting to $55 billion and left 232 people dead.

In fact, the US was hit by so many costly storms throughout the year that even when hurricanes were removed, the other convective storms cost more than $60 billion in damage and killed 88 people.

2024 year-ender: In terms of events which caused the biggest financial losses in 2024, the US bore the brunt

No part of the world was spared from crippling climate disasters in 2024, with floods in China costing $15.6 billion and killing 315 people, and Typhoon Yagi which battered southwest Asia, killing more than 800 people. Yagi made landfall on September 2 in the Philippines, before moving on to Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand, where it triggered landslides , flash flooding and damaged hundreds of thousands of homes and agricultural land.

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