4 days ago
‘Over 3K natural disaster deaths in 2024-25'
The number of people that died on account of natural disasters (including extreme weather events) was 3080 in 2024-25, the highest since 2013-14 according to a provisional estimate of the number from the Disaster Management (DM) division of the home affairs ministry, although the number is likely to be a significant underestimate, if past trend data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) is any indication.
The 3080 number was published by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on June 5 in its annual compilation of environment-related statistics in the EnviStats report. This number is 18% more than the provisional number for 2023-24; and the highest since 2013-14, when it r was 5,677. In fact, the 2024-25 figure is the fourth highest figure since 2001-02, the earliest year for which the EnviStats report gives data.
To be sure, the DM division numbers compiled in the EnviStats report are a gross under-estimate of total deaths from natural disasters in India. The latter is available from the Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India (ADSI) report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), which was last published in 2023 for the year 2022.
ADSI data – also compiled in the EnviStats report – shows that there were an average 7,526 deaths due to natural disasters in each of the five years ending 2022, of which 2,772 deaths were just from lightning and another 2,034 deaths were filed under a non-specific head. In all the five years from 2018 to 2022, total natural disaster deaths were at least 6,891 and lightning and miscellaneous deaths at least 2,357 and 1,706 respectively. Therefore, the provisional estimate for 2024-25 cited above makes sense only if these two are excluded. To be sure, only DM division numbers have been compared above for the 2001-02 to 2024-25 period.
The DM division numbers also show that while human deaths were at an 11-year high in 2024-25, this was not the case with the number of houses damaged or cattle lost or cropped area affected. The loss of 61,960 cattle in 2024-25 is 48% less than in 2023-24 and ranked only 10th highest since 2001-02. The number of houses damaged – 3,64,124 -- was 2.6 times that in 2023-24, but ranked fifth lowest since 2001-02. Similarly, 1.42 million hectares of cropped area affected was 6% more than in 2023-24, but the area is second lowest since 2001-02.
