MONDAY, Feb. 20, 2006 (HealthDay News) -- The 2004 tsunami disaster that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives is a clear example that poor and disadvantaged people around the world are much more likely to die in natural disasters than those with higher socioeconomic status, researchers say.
Hurricane Katrina and last fall's massive Pakistani earthquake also highlight this disparity, concludes a paper released Sunday by the Earth Institute at Columbia University, New York City.
The large majority of people who died in the tsunami were relatively poor, many of them subsistence level fishermen. It's tough for scientists to gauge the economic impact of these people's deaths because they contributed little to the formal economy, the experts said.
They also noted that insured property losses in the tsunami were small. This was not because there was little property destroyed in the disaster, but because so few people had property insurance.
Finally, it has long been recognized that countries ranking lowest on measures such as the Human Development Index suffer much more severe losses than richer countries when natural disaster strikes, the paper's authors said.
That's due in part to inadequate emergency response capabilities and a large number of homes and other structures being hit. However, poor people are also more vulnerable because they often live in areas prone to flooding and landslides, or in regions where climate extremes are common.
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about natural disasters.
