Number of People Killed in Disasters Falling

The number of people killed in disasters fell by 70% last year, despite the death of more than 70,000 Pakistanis in an earthquake, the UN said yesterday.

There were 91,900 disaster deaths last year, according to the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, a drop from 320,000 people who died in 2004, mostly from the tsunami that struck Indonesia and 11 other countries.

The decrease confirms a trend of lower catastrophe fatalities, despite the October earthquake in Pakistan and India that was responsible for four in five disaster-related deaths last year, disaster expert Debarati Guha-Sapir said.