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The 10 costliest disasters in history
A pandemic, nuclear accidents, earthquakes and hurricanes in rich countries: the disasters that cost the most.
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1
COVID-19 pandemic
The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, identified in Wuhan at the end of 2019, spreads to every continent within weeks.
≈ $12,500 billion
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2
Chernobyl disaster
During a safety test, reactor No.
≈ $235 billion
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3
Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
A magnitude 9.0 – 9.1 earthquake, the most powerful ever measured in Japan, triggers a tsunami whose waves reach about 40 m in places and overtop the coastal seawalls.
≈ $235 billion
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4
Fukushima nuclear accident
Cut off from power by the tsunami, the plant loses cooling in three reactors, which melt down.
≈ $190 billion
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5
Hurricane Katrina
New Orleans’ levees fail under the storm surge: about 80% of the city is flooded.
≈ $125 billion
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6
Sichuan earthquake
A magnitude 7.9 earthquake strikes the foothills of the Tibetan Plateau in the middle of the afternoon.
≈ $124 billion
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7
Turkey–Syria earthquakes
Two earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 and 7.7 strike nine hours apart, in the middle of a winter night, on the East Anatolian Fault.
≈ $104 billion
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8
Kobe earthquake
A magnitude 6.9 earthquake strikes directly beneath a large modern city.
≈ $100 billion
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9
Hurricane Maria
A Category 4 hurricane crosses Puerto Rico from end to end, two weeks after Hurricane Irma.
≈ $90 billion
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10
Deepwater Horizon oil spill
The explosion of the drilling rig operated for BP causes the largest accidental marine oil spill in history: about 4.9 million barrels escape over 87 days.
≈ $65 billion
Estimated costs in dollars of the time, not adjusted for inflation. Older disasters, rarely costed, do not appear. Ranking based on the disasters in the Mémoire du Globe atlas, using the most commonly accepted tolls. For older events, the figures are orders of magnitude.
Other rankings
- The deadliest disasters in history
- The deadliest earthquakes in history
- The worst disasters in France
- The deadliest volcanic eruptions
- The deadliest hurricanes and cyclones
- The deadliest pandemics in history
- The deadliest floods
- The worst industrial and nuclear disasters
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