Japan’s Calamity: Costliest Disaster Ever

Japan’s recent 1-2-3 calamity has been reported to be the costliest disaster ever.

The Economist writes,

JAPAN is still reeling from the earthquake and tsunami that struck its north-east coast on March 11th, with the government struggling to contain a nuclear disaster and around 10,000 people still unaccounted for. Provisional estimates released today by the World Bank put the economic damage resulting from the disaster at as much as $235 billion, around 4% of GDP. That figure would make this disaster the costliest since comparable records began in 1965. The Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, which caused some 250,000 deaths, does not feature on this chart. Economic losses there amounted to only $14 billion in today’s prices, partly because of low property and land values in the affected areas.

This is an example where the losses from natural disasters are narrowly viewed in monetary terms. I am not sure if the estimates have quantified casualties in money terms (any estimates will likely be inaccurate and underestimate the value of human lives)

While the $ based losses may be huge, Japan’s disaster seems only a fraction of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in terms of deaths.

For me, lives lost, injuries, displacement and trauma from the disasters are more important (or cost more) than $ based property damages.