Natural Disasters that Cost Billions in Damage

Year: 2021
Nation: United States
Cost in Damage: $195+ Billion (2021)*

Winter Storm Uri reached North America just in time for Valentine’s Day 2021, but there was nothing loving about it. 27 winters had passed since the “Storm of the Century” hit North America in 1993, and Uri was ready to become the storm of ‘this’ century. Northern Mexico, most of the United States, and parts of Canada were all affected by Uri’s cold demeanor.

North American Winter Storm @The Guardian / Twitter.com

Almost 10 million people were left without power, and half of all Americans were given severe weather warnings. At more than $195 billion worth of damaged caused, Winter Storm Uri left a more expensive bill than any other natural disaster in the United States’ history and was the costliest winter storm the world has ever seen.

Year: 2020
Nation: China
Cost in Damage: $32.3 Billion (2021)*

In the latter part of the spring and the early part of the summer, China’s Southeastern region experiences its annual wet season. While it’s normal to experience quite a bit of precipitation that time of year, it had been since the late-‘90s that the rains had reached the extremes that they did in June of 2020.

China Floods @ca.news / Tumblr.com

33 of the 443 rivers, that had flooded across Southeast China, had reached levels they had not risen to before causing the displacement of 750,000 people and the destruction of 54,000 homes. In total, 63.46 million people across 26 of China’s provinces felt the economic pains of the $32.3 billion of damages caused by the floods of 2020.

Year: 2010
Nation: United States
Cost in Damage: $72.2-$120.4 Billion (2021)*

When drilling is being done deep below the sea there is always the possibility of disaster. And that’s exactly what happened in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20th, 2010, when high-pressure methane gas ignited in the “Deepwater Horizon” oil rig’s drilling rig. The subsequent well-explosion caused a disaster, the likes of which had never before been seen.

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill @AppleIsMe / Reddit.com

210 million gallons of oil (4.9 million barrels) were spilled in what is regarded as the “largest marine oil spill” that the petroleum industry has experienced, which amounted to upwards of $120 billion worth of damages and oil lost. Sadly, 11 members of the rig’s crew who disappeared in the explosion were never found.

Year: 2021
Nation: Japan
Cost in Damage: $1.3 Billion (2021)*

Ten years after the Tōhoku earthquake that shook Japan back in 2011, the “Land of the Rising Sun” was still feeling the aftershocks. None had been as large or, due to its proximity to the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, as frightening as the Fukushima-ken Oki earthquake of February 13th, 2020.

Fukushima Earthquake ©Fly_and_Dive/Shutterstock.com

Reaching a tectonic plate shifting 7.1 on the seismic magnitude scale, luckily, the power plant was not damaged and there was no radioactive fallout…this time. The $1.3 billion worth of damages was mostly due to insurance claims and the losses of personal property. Although there was 1 casualty and 186 others were injured, things could have been much worse.

Year: 2001
Nation: France
Cost in Damage: $4 Billion (2021)*

A mere ten days after the events of September 11th, 2001, an explosion that had an estimated force equivalent of ~20-30 tons of TNT shook France, both physically and emotionally. The explosion occurred in a fertilizer factory and was caused by the same material that is said to have caused the Beirut port explosion of 2020, ammonium nitrate.

AZF Chemical Plant Explosion @Kermit_Purple / Reddit.com

The explosion at the AZF factory in Toulouse left $4 billion worth of damages and a fantastic reminder as to why ammonium nitrate should never be stored near a civilian population. Fortunately, only 31 people were killed and another 2,500 were injured in the blast, while all that was left behind of the factory was a 23-foot-deep and 131-foot-wide crater where it used to stand.

Year: 2003
Nation: United States
Cost in Damage: $5.9 Billion (2021)*

There have never, in recorded history, been more tornados in a one-week span than what the Great Plains of the United States experienced in May of 2003. Of the 338 tornados that touched down between the 4th and 10th of May, 65 were significant enough to be rated F4 (the Fujita scale goes up to F5).

Tornado Outbreak Sequence @ABC News / Youtube.com

In total, between May 3rd and May 11th, 401 tornados hit the States causing 713 injuries and 50 casualties. With accumulated damages resulting in approximately $5.9 billion (2021), 2003’s Tornado Outbreak Sequence is the costliest that the United States has experienced in the 2000s thus far.

Year: 2002
Nation: Central Europe
Cost in Damage: $28 Billion (2021)*

In August of 2002, Hanne and Ilse, two low-pressure systems traveled north to Central Europe from the Mediterranean bringing with them warm moist air that ended up causing a “once a century” flood. 12 countries were affected by the floods that killed 110 people and left tens of thousands of others without homes.

European Floods @Wikipedia

The hardest hit of all the European countries was Germany which experienced approximately two-thirds of the $28 billion in losses that resulted from the flooding. Most notably were the towns of Grimma, which had ten years of renovations destroyed in less than a day, and the city of Dresden which had to evacuate 30,000 people after the Elbe River swelled to 30.8 feet high.

Year: 2011
Nation: Thailand
Cost in Damage: $53.3 Billion (2021)*

Anytime someone visits a region as tropical as Southeast Asia, they should expect the possibility of encountering rain and flooding, unlike anything they would see in most Western countries. And Thailand is no exception, in fact, it’s one of the best examples of what could happen to a country that isn’t prepared for Mother Nature to make its stand.

Thailand Floods @Noi Hitanant / Pinterest.com

When Tropical Storm Nock-ten made its landfall in neighboring Vietnam in July of 2011, the people of Thailand had no way of knowing what was around the corner. Of Thailand’s 76 provinces 65 were about to become disaster areas due to flooding. Country-wide, more than 7,700 square miles of farmland were destroyed, and parts of Bangkok were submerged underwater for weeks. Damages across the country came to a whopping 1.425 trillion Thai Baht.

Year: 2008
Nation: Greater Antilles and North America
Cost in Damage: $45.7 Billion (2021)*

For the first two weeks of September, in 2008, hurricane Ike worked its way through the Gulf of Mexico and across the Greater Antilles, until finally making landfall in Texas on the 13th. The Category 4 hurricane weakened into an ‘extratropical’ storm the following day, but still managed to wreak havoc as it worked its way north through America and up into Canada.

Hurricane Ike @Glenda L. / Pinterest.com

When it happened, Hurricane Ike was the second-costliest hurricane in American history. It was estimated that by the time Ike had dissipated, and its trail of terror had ended, the damage left in its wake had amounted to $38 billion (with $30 billion worth of damage from the States alone), and the loss of 214 lives.

Year: 2016
Nation: Canada
Cost in Damage: $10.4 Billion (2021)*

On May 3rd, 2016, just two days after a wildfire began outside of Fort McMurray, Alberta, almost 90,000 people had to leave their homes in what has become the largest wildfire evacuation in the province’s history. Luckily, there were only 2 (indirect) human casualties of the wildfire but, sadly, the ecological ramifications of the disaster were quite severe, and countless wildlife had their habitats destroyed.

Fort McMurray Wildfire @CTVNews / Twitter.com

Prior to declaring that the fire was under control, along with approximately 1.5 million acres of land, close to 3,200 homes and buildings were laid to waste by the inferno. More than 15 months, and $10 billion in damages later, on August 2, 2017, the announcement was finally made that the fire had been completely extinguished.

Year: 2017
Nation: United States
Cost in Damage: $133.2 Billion (2021)*

By the summer of 2017, it had been a dozen years since the United States had seen a storm of hurricane strength make landfall. With winds that reached upwards of 130 mph, Hurricane Harvey reached Category 4 intensity on August 25th, 2017, just hours before making landfall on San Jose, Texas.

Hurricane Harvey @CNN / Pinterest.com

No tropical cyclone in United States history has resulted in more rain than what Harvey brought to the table. Nederland, Texas, was the unfortunate recipient of the worst that Harvey had to offer, accumulating 60.58 inches of rainfall. Harvey’s heavy-handed wrath resulted in 107 confirmed casualties, 30,000 displaced people, and more than $130 billion in total damages.

Year: 2019
Nation: Australia
Cost in Damage: $71.8 Billion (2021)*

For almost a year, between June 2019 and May of the following year, approximately 46 million acres of Australian land fell victim to bushfires. Although the fires are common in Australia, they don’t usually spread as sporadically or as quickly as what was experienced on the East Coast of the country that year.

Australian Brushfire @Australia Bushfire / Pinterest.com

At times, the images and videos of the disaster didn’t seem real, but the scorched earth that the inferno left behind proved otherwise. Sadly, close to 500 people were killed by the bushfires, however, it was 72,000 square miles of Australia’s cherished ecosystem and its wildlife that were the biggest victims of this $71.8 billion catastrophe.

Year: 2012
Nation: North America
Cost in Damage: $78.5 Billion (2021)*

In the fall of 2012, when most people across North America would usually be preparing for Halloween, Hurricane Sandy showed up to play a trick on several countries, yet left them no treats. Sandy’s hurricane-force winds were felt across a diameter of 1,150 miles making it the largest hurricane (on record) to come out of the Atlantic.

Hurricane Sandy @Buzzfeed / Pinterest.com

The majority of the monetary damages came from Sandy’s visit to the United States, however, it was the Greater Antilles, more specifically Haiti and Jamaica, that felt the true power of the storm. 70% of Jamaicans were left without power while more than 200,000 Haitians were left homeless, and another 554 were killed.

Year: 2011
Nation: Japan
Cost in Damage: $423.7 Billion (2021)*

No stronger earthquake has struck Japan than the Tohoku Earthquake that occurred off its east coast in 2011. Measuring at 9.1 on the seismic magnitude scale and lasting for more than 6 minutes, the earthquake caused tsunamis that reached as far away as Chile and reached heights of up to 128 feet on Japan’s coast.

Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami @zunitaramli / Twitter.com

The damage caused to the Fukushima nuclear power plant’s reactors caused a very expensive meltdown and accounted for a big chunk of the $423.7 billion in total damages. More than 2,500 people were never found following the destruction, and close to 20,000 others perished as well (14,308) from the tsunami.