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Storm - USA

Late Winter Storm - USA

Flood - Argentina

Earthquake - Turkey

Tornado - USA

Flood - China

Other events
Catastrophe Report 3
January 1 – July 8, 2003 - Bill McGuire


North-east US snow cover. March 3rd 2003. (Courtesy NASA).
Following six months of quiet, the first half of 2003 experienced a reawakening of geological activity. A moderate earthquake in China killed 268 in February and another in Turkey took around 180 lives at the start of May. Just three weeks later, the year's most lethal natural catastrophe so far took over 2,200 lives, injured more than 10,000 and left 150,000 homeless as another quake struck Algeria close to the capital Algiers. Economic and insured losses over the period were once again dominated by weather-related events and especially by winter storms in the United States. A major loss was also triggered, however, by severe floods in Argentina, which are estimated to have cost the economy in excess of one billion US$. Floods also proved to be ubiquitous in the developing world, causing serious problems in particular in Azerbaijan, the Horn of Africa, Indonesia, Peru and Sri Lanka. At the time of writing, flooding on a gigantic scale is also inundating eastern China, with over 45 million people affected and initial estimates of economic looses approaching one billion US$. With further torrential rains on the way, this is a figure that is likely to rise significantly. Destructive tropical cyclones struck Fiji, New Caledonia, Indonesia, India, Madagascar and the Philippines, although death tolls were low. Following the Algerian quake, the most lethal event was a heat wave that affected much of India during May and early June, to which are attributed over 1,200 deaths. While catastrophe-related economic and insured losses in Europe were minimal, first quarter insured losses in the United States are estimated at 1.46 billion
US$, compared to 615 million US$ for the same period in 2002. Losses are attributed to five events affecting half the states in the Union. Three of these were severe winter storms that blanketed fifteen states causing an estimated 1.1 billion US$ in insured property damage, while the balance of first-quarter losses resulted from two wind/windstorm events. US Second-quarter insured losses will be dominated by the results of the battering received by the tornado-alley states during early May, for which total claims are expected to range from 1.55 to 2.2 billion US$, the largest tornado loss on record.

This report was first published in Catastrophe Risk Management in August 2003.