Insurance Co. Blames Global Warming for an Especially Disastrous Year

Natural disasters took a deadly toll in 2008, killing more than 220,000 people and causing a total of $200 billion in damages--a 50 percent increase in costs over 2007. A new report sums up the damages wrought this year by weather and geology; the deadliest disaster was the cyclone that battered Myanmar in May, killing an estimated 130,000 people and causing losses of $4 billion, and the costliest was the earthquake that struck China's Sichuan province, killing an estimated 70,000 and causing losses of $85 billion. The new figures come from an annual assessment of global damages by the reinsurance giant Munich Re, which