World's 10 worst weather disasters of past 20 years led to 570,000 deaths

Climate change fuelled the world’s 10 worst weather disasters of the past two decades and contributed to the deaths of more than 570,000 people, a study found.

Extreme weather became more frequent during that period, with this year accounting for the highest total number of heatwaves, extreme rainfall, drought, storms and wildfires since 2004. But the deadliest events all took place in 2023 or the decades before it, including three tropical cyclones in the Indo-Pacific region, four European heatwaves, two occasions of deadly rainfall and a drought.

Worst weather of past decade

They were all worsened by climate change, the study by World Weather Attribution found, doubling the likelihood of devastating downpours such as the 2013 Uttarakhand floods and making such events 11 per cent more intense.

Global warming also made an event such as the Russian heatwave of 2010 significantly more likely to occur. Wind speeds and sea surface temperatures were also higher as a result in the Sidr and Nargis cyclones and Typhoon Haiyan. “Climate change isn’t a distant threat,” said Dr Friederike Otto, co-founder of World Weather Attribution. “It worsened extreme weather events that left more than 570,000 people dead.”

The study highlights the dangers of extreme weather, with global temperatures currently 1.3°C above pre-industrial levels. They are predicted to reach up to 3.1°C above those levels by the end of this century. Researchers suggest warming will pass 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by the mid-2030s, which would cause countries to face increasingly dangerous heatwaves, drought, wildfires and storms.

All countries must increase their efforts to adapt and prepare for extreme weather, including putting plans in place to evacuate people during flooding, or opening cooling centres during periods of extreme heat, the report said. Infrastructure including dams should also be built to tackle the effects of climate change, the researchers added.

"In Libya, one of the deadliest extreme weather events that we studied was mostly as a result of the extreme rainfall driving the collapse of two dams, leading to massive floods and destruction," Roop Singh, head of urban and attribution at the Red Cross Red Crescent climate centre, said on Tuesday, before the report was released.

"This year, we have also seen significant loss of life caused by dam collapses in Sudan and Nigeria. So there is this global risk associated with ageing infrastructure worldwide that's starting to emerge. Therefore, it's really important for us to invest in climate-resilient infrastructure going forward and to maintain that infrastructure."

Extreme weather will become more frequent as global temperatures rise, the researchers added.

“Every country needs to prepare for the future. Investing in early warning systems, updating outdated infrastructure and reorienting our policies to support the most vulnerable are key actions that can drastically reduce the impacts of extreme weather,” Ms Singh said. “But ultimately, we need to cut emissions. With every fraction of a degree of warming, we will see more record-breaking events that push countries to the brink, no matter how prepared they are.”

Experts said the Cop29 climate change conference in Azerbaijan this year must accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels. “At the turn of the century, climate change was often thought of as a faraway, distant threat,” said Sjoukje Philip, a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.

“But today, we have 20 years of attribution science directly linking climate change with record-breaking heatwaves, drought, wildfires and storms. The body of evidence linking extreme weather to climate change will continue to grow as the climate continues to warm and we develop more attribution methods.”

Worst weather of the past decade

• 2007 Cylone Sidr, Bangladesh - 4,234 deaths
• 2008 Cyclone Nargis, Myanmar - 138,366 deaths
• 2010 Russia heatwave - 55,736 deaths
• 2011 Somalia drought - 258,000 deaths
• 2013 India floods - 6,054 deaths
• 2013 Typhoon Haiyan, Philippines - 7,354 deaths
• 2015 European heatwave - 3,275 deaths
• 2022 European heatwave - 53,542 deaths
• 2023 European heatwave - 37,129 deaths
• 2022 Storm Daniel, Libya - 12,352 deaths