NK #1 in Natural Disaster Deaths

SEOUL: North Korea suffered the world’s largest number of deaths from natural disasters over the past decade, the International Red Cross said in a new report on Tuesday.

A total of 458,435 people died in disasters that hit North Korea from 1997 to 2006, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said in its World Disasters Report 2007.

The figure accounts for about 38 per cent of some 1.2 million deaths from natural disasters reported worldwide during the period, the report said.

The figure was more than double the number in Indonesia where 181,977 people died. Pakistan and Sri Lanka ranked third and fourth.

While it is true that no person can control nature, how they cope with it makes a huge difference in lives lost. A flood in North Korea has a greater impact than a flood in the Midwest. The biggest natural disaster by far is the 2004 tsunami which impacted Indonesia the most and yet casualties are dwarfed by the floods and the subsequent famine that struck North Korea. By being poorly prepared before disaster and isolating itself after the fact, North Korea caused further casualties as a a result.