The Bible and Insurance Companies Predict Increase in Natural Disasters "Munich Re": Be Prepared for More Victims of Storms, Floods, Earth Quakes and Forest Fires Munich, June 24 (idea) - The Bible predicts an increase in natural disasters during the end times - and so do insurance companies. "Munich Re" - one of the world's main re-insurers - is convinced that we will see more devastating floods, earthquakes and storms in the future. In a long-term assessment "Munich Re" speaks of a "dramatic increase". The company's statistics show that, comparing the last ten years (1993-2002) with the 1960s, the number of major catastrophes has increased by a factor of 2.6 from 27 to 70. Economic losses - adjusted for inflation - multiplied by 7.3 from 75.5 billion to 84.5 billion US-Dollars. Last year was marked in Central Europe by storms, torrential rain and record floods along the rivers Danube and Elbe, and also saw severe hurricanes and typhoons in North America and Asia. In addition there were 70 earthquakes and 20 major volcanic eruptions. In 2002 approximately 11,000 people lost their lives in natural disasters, about half of them were flood victims. Economic losses added up to 55 billion US-Dollars, 20 billion more than in the previous year. "Munich Re" forecasts that natural disasters will become more frequent due to global warming and the resulting climate change. One other contributing factor to the steep increase in insurance losses is the mounting concentration of people and property in mega cities. According to the United Nations, urbanization is progressing at a rapid pace. In 1950 just under 30 per cent of the world's population lived in urban areas; today the figure has exceeded 50 per cent. Mega cities have reached enormous dimensions: Tokyo-Yokohama (Japan) has about 35 million inhabitants, New York (USA) 22 million, Sao Paulo (Brazil) 20 million and Shanghai (China) 14 million. Cities are spreading into areas highly exposed to earthquakes, floods or forest fires. "Munich Re" has developed an index for the risk potentials of the largest metropolitan areas. At Tokyo-Yokohama is at the top of the danger list, followed by the bay of San Francisco and Los Angeles, the region Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto, Miami and New York. London in 9th place bears the highest risk in Europe, followed by Paris (10), the Ruhr area (16), Amsterdam-Rotterdam (18), Moscow (19), Frankfurt (20) and Milan (21). Mexico City (12) is the riskiest city in Latin America, Sydney (24) tops the list in Australia, and Johannesburg (34) in Africa. END Evangelical news agency idea. Wolfgang Polzer Tel: +49-6441-915102, Fax: +49-6441-915118 e-mail: - Internet: http://www.idea.de Postal address: idea, PO Box 1820, 35528 Wetzlar, Germany
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