Under this title, a short article by Gerhard Berz appeared in Natural Hazards 1 (1988), 97-99. First of all, the author should be congratulated for preparing such a list based on a wide variety of sources. In any attempt at compiling lists on any topic, there are bound to be errors; specifically either spurious entries or some important omissions. I would like to comment on one aspect of this table in particular.
The table does a disservice to the world's foremost natural hazard of geophysical origin, namely storm surges (Murty, 1984). Whereas until about 1965, earthquakes used to be the world's foremost natural hazard, at present storm surges have replaced earthquakes in the number one spot both in terms of people killed and property damage. This is mainly due to more and more people living on the coastlines, with the population near the coastlines increasing some three times faster than in the interior, and to ever-increasing construction near coastlines. For example, the damage due to Hurrican Gilbert during 10-15 September 1988 is estimated to exceed $40 billion.
In his table, Berz lists only one storm surge out of a total of 110 entries. The deaths and damage he lists under the title cyclones, hurricanes and storms are really due to the storm surge that is generated. It is generally known that up to 97% of deaths occurring during a cyclone are due to drowning in the resulting storm surge. In a study of global disasters for the period 1947 to 1980, Shah (1983) ) gives a table in which cyclones are in the number one spot, ahead of earthquakes. However, Shah did not list separately the deaths due to storm surge and the direct wind effects of cyclones. In 1988 there were more deaths due to storm surges in Bangladesh, China, Japan, South Korea, Jamaica, and Mexico.
Specifically, the 30000 deaths that occurred in Bangladesh on 12 November 1970 were due to a storm surge. The 11 000 deaths again in Bangladesh during May 1985 were also due to a storm surge. There were several important omissions from Berz's list (Murty et al., 1986). The following table provides some additional cases of the numbers of people killed by storm surges in the Bay of Bengal region.