Natural disasters cost China $17b in first 6 months of 2024
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At least 32.38 million people in China were affected by natural disasters in January to June.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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BEIJING - China suffered direct economic loss worth 93.16 billion yuan (S$17.24 billion) in the first half of 2024 due to natural disasters, the government said on July 12.
This is the deepest first-half disaster-related loss since 2019, according to data available on the Emergency Management Ministry website, as the country suffered flooding, drought and extreme temperature
China saw cold spells and heavy snow earlier in 2024, as well as a 7.1-magnitude earthquake in the north-western region of Xinjiang, landslides in south-western regions and flooding on the Yellow River and in southern provinces.
At least 32.4 million people were affected by natural disasters during the January-June period.
This included 322 people either dead or unaccounted for.
About 856,000 faced emergency resettlement and 23,000 houses were destroyed, while around 3.17 million ha of crops were affected.
The impact on the economy was worse than the year-earlier period, when the country logged 38.23 billion yuan worth of loss with 95 people missing or dead.
For all of 2023, about 48.76 million people were affected by natural disasters, according to the ministry’s report on that year.
Funds channelled into disaster management have reached 4.17 billion yuan so far in 2024, according to a Reuters tally, with 546 million yuan allocated in June for agricultural production and disaster relief. REUTERS
