Overview
- California’s Palisades and Eaton wildfires were the year’s single costliest event at about $60 billion in damage, with more than 400 deaths linked to the blazes.
- A cluster of cyclones and flooding across Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Malaysia caused roughly $25 billion in losses and killed more than 1,750 people.
- China’s June–August flooding produced about $11.7 billion in losses with at least 30 deaths, while India and Pakistan’s monsoon season caused approximately $5.6 billion in damage and more than 1,860 deaths.
- Asia accounted for four of the six most expensive disasters, reflecting high regional losses even as many severe events in poorer nations were not fully captured in insured figures.
- Experts link the escalating impacts to human-driven warming and note that COP30’s pledge to triple adaptation finance to about $120 billion by 2035 is widely judged insufficient relative to assessed needs.