Early warning systems are saving thousands of lives: UN

The United Nations (UN) said on Monday (May 22) that even though weather-related disasters have surged over the past 50 years, early warning systems have dramatically lessened the number of deaths. New figures from the UN's World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) have shown that extreme weather, climate and water-related events caused 11,778 reported disasters between 1970 and 2021.

UN said that these disasters have killed over two million people and cost an estimated USD 4.3 trillion in economic losses.

"The most vulnerable communities, unfortunately, bear the brunt of weather, climate and water-related hazards," WMO chief Petteri Taalas said in a statement.

Over 90 per cent of reported deaths across the world over the 51-year period have occurred in developing countries.

But the agency also said improved early warning systems and coordinated disaster management had significantly reduced the human casualty toll.

WMO pointed out in a report issued two years ago covering disaster-linked deaths and losses between 1970 and 2019, that at the beginning of the period the world was seeing more than 50,000 such deaths each year.

The report says that by the 2010s, the death toll due to such disasters dropped to below 20,000 annually.

In its update of that report, WMO said Monday that 22,608 disaster deaths were recorded globally in 2020 and 2021 combined.

Cyclone Mocha

Taalas said that Cyclone Mocha exemplified this. Cyclone Mocha wreaked havoc in Myanmar and Bangladesh last week. It "caused widespread devastation... impacting the poorest of the poor," he said.

Myanmar's military junta put the death toll from the cyclone at 145. But Taalas said that during similar disasters in past, "both Myanmar and Bangladesh suffered death tolls of tens and even hundreds of thousands of people".

"Thanks to early warnings and disaster management these catastrophic mortality rates are now thankfully history. Early warnings save lives."

The UN plan

The United Nations has launched a plan to ensure that all nations have disaster early warning systems by the end of 2027.

Endorsing that plan figures among the top strategic priorities during a meeting of WMO's decision-making body, the World Meteorological Congress, which opens Monday.

To date, only half of countries have such systems in place.

Economic losses

WMO, meanwhile, warned that while deaths have plunged, the economic losses incurred when weather, climate and water extremes hit have soared.

The agency previously recorded economic losses increased sevenfold between 1970 and 2019, rising from $49 million per day during the first decade to $383 million per day in the final one.

(With inputs from agencies)