10 Costliest Natural Disasters in the World for 2021

The cost of weather disasters keeps going up. The UK charity Christian Aid is out with its annual snapshot, one that ranks the 10 worst such disasters of the year worldwide and pegs their total cost at more than $170 billion, reports the Guardian. The figure, up from $150 billion in 2020, is based mostly on insured losses, and the group says in a statement that "true financial costs are likely to be even higher." The 10 costliest disasters of the year, per Christian Aid:

1. Hurricane Ida (US) — $65 billion
2. European floods — $43 billion
3. Texas winter storm — $23 billion
4. Henan floods (China) — $17.6 billion
5. British Columbia floods — $7.5 billion
6. France's "cold wave" — $5.6 billion
7. Cyclone Yaas (India, Bangladesh) — $3 billion
8. Australian floods — $2.1 billion
9. Typhoon In-fa (China, Philippines, Japan) — $2 billion
10. Cyclone Tauktae (India, Sri Lanka, Maldives) — $1.5 billion

(More natural disaster stories.)