Deadly wildfires, terrifying avalanches, super-strong hurricanes, famine, and drought — here are some of the costliest disasters from around the world in 2017. 2017 was an expensive, deadly year of natural disasters on Earth.
Wildfires relentlessly scorched dry land from California to Portugal. Super-strength hurricanes and tropical storms slammed homes from the Caribbean to Ireland. Famine continued in Somalia and Yemen, while avalanches killed more than a hundred people in Afghanistan.
People around the world recorded record-breaking devastation, much of it caused by higher-than-usual temperatures on land and at sea. Climate experts say that in a warming world, these fatal events will continue to worsen. A November 2017 report released by the Trump Administration cautioned that “extreme climate events” like heavy rainfall, extreme heatwaves, wildfires, and sea-level rise will all get more severe around the globe, and that some of these events could result in abrupt, irreversible changes to the climate as we know it.
Tech: Natural disasters set records around the world in 2017 — these were the worst
