36 Million People were Estimated to be Displaced by Sudden-Onset Natural Disasters in 2008

Ishita Dey

Findings of a study by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre on “disaster displacement” shows that 36 million people were displaced by sudden onset of disasters of which 20 million were displaced by sudden-onset climate-related disasters. The report aims to fulfill the gap of “global monitoring mechanism” as the data on current trends in disaster related forced displacement will form the baseline for potential nature of displacement. The aims of the study were to provide firstly an estimate of the number of people displaced by natural disasters in 2008, a methodology for ongoing monitoring of forced displacement as a result of natural disasters and an indication of the resources required to implement the methodology on an ongoing basis. The report states that a total of 312 disasters (meteorological, hydrological, climatological (except drought) and geophysical ) occurred in 2008 .During the course of research, ten additional disasters were found to have resulted in displacement, bringing the total number of disasters included in
this study to 322. These disasters affected a total of over 207 million people.

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