Recently (here and there) I mentioned Reinsurers comments on the increase on the number of catastrophes. But actually, there are other sources of information about catastrophes. For instance the http://www.cred.be/, Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. As the mention it below, there has been an increase in the number of natural catastrophes. For a disaster to be entered into the so-called EM-database at least one of the following criteria must be fulfilled:
• Ten (10) or more people reported killed.
• Hundred (100) or more people reported affected.
• Declaration of a state of emergency.
• Call for international assistance.
Note that it is possible to download data (here), so I guess I will work further with that database. To be continued…