Japan Earthquake Among World's Most Expensive Catastrophes

With Japan facing a mounting economic crisis in the wake of Friday's magnitude-8.9 earthquake and deadly tsunami, global insurers are already calling the temblor the world's "most costliest" catastrophe.

As Reuters is reporting, the overall cost of the multiple disasters exceeded $170 billion on Monday, well above 2005's Hurricane Katrina (estimated at $81 billion) and last summer's Pakistan floods ($43 billion). There are still questions about how the ongoing nuclear accident at the Fukushima reactors will continue to affect losses.

Check out live updates from Japan here.

View the seven most expensive global disasters in recent history, as reported by the Guardian, below:

Japanese Earthquake And Tsunami, 2011

• • • • • • • The devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami is expected to be the most expensive disaster in modern history. As Reuters reports, estimates of the overall cost of the multiple disasters exceeded $170 billion on Monday, and there are still questions about how the ongoing nuclear accident at the Fukushima reactors will affect losses.

Comments

[joebiteme]

11:20 PM on 03/19/2011

Its obvious that the Japanese have no idea how to handle this disaster.. where is the looting where is the folks crying for FEMA, why aren't they all being given $2000 to spend on liquor. Time to send in ray (school bus) nagin

[Tony581]

10:22 PM on 04/27/2011

If they were crying for Ray Nagin in Japan, you wouldn't understand them, so perhaps you should be a bit less sarcastic and cruel.

[loki]

03:41 AM on 03/19/2011

I dont see the recent pillaging of the American home owners, middle class, workers, disabled, elderly and poor by Wall Street listed here? That was among the worlds most expensive catastrophes ever!

Then again, I guess it depends on which side of the mortgage scam you were on as to if it was catastrophic or not. If you are on the Wall Street Ivy Greed Capitalisterrorist side, it was a fantastic event that profited them untold riches for decades to come. If you were on everyone else's side, it was the worst disaster of cataclysmic proportions.

[joebiteme]

11:20 PM on 03/19/2011

dodds and frank and waters made out realllly well

[Tony581]

10:22 PM on 04/27/2011

I guess no conservatives may any money from the bank bailouts?

[OMG1]

02:58 AM on 03/19/2011

What I find fascinating is that all these disasters have occurred within the last six years and all but one was tectonic in nature. I think we are in for a bumpy ride.

[joebiteme]

11:21 PM on 03/19/2011

aliens!!!

[osofar]

08:24 PM on 03/17/2011

The most expensive disasters were man-made...the Republican and Democratic parties who are owned and paid for by the banksters and corpratists....our wars without end for the military and indulstrialist profiteers...and our subsidized fossil fuel and atomic power induistries. Natural disasters pale by comparison, because nature..and not people...caused them.

[Tony581]

05:29 PM on 03/18/2011

World War II has got to be the most expensive disaster of all time. I think at least 40 million people died. Maybe more. In 2011 dollars, the cost was easily in the trillions of dollars. You can't blame the USA or the American political parties for that fiasco. It has more to do with failed experiments in fascism and communism. I wonder how long it will be before another disaster tops WWII.

[Peace Walker]

06:08 AM on 03/17/2011

Gee, its good to know that the 300,000 lives lost in the 2004 Tsunami were cheaper; not to mention questioning where the Trillion spent on Iraq and Afghanistan wars might figure in...

Good to know we are concentrating on costs here and not the 13,000 lives lost.

[anitaj]

12:53 PM on 03/17/2011

My thoughts exactly. The billions of dollars required to replace cars, buildings, roads, etc. pale in comparison to the value of lives lost.

[loki]

03:43 AM on 03/19/2011

I dont know, have you seen what our Gov, and insurance companies have decided a human life is worth lately? Your life is most likely worth much less than the price of a used Toyota Yaris if you use the US capitalist valuation charts.

[joebiteme]

11:22 PM on 03/19/2011

why over 1 million babies lose their lives ebvry year in this country and there is no weeping or demanding an end

[Robert Soran]

05:33 PM on 03/15/2011

The most Expensive Catastrophes were Iraq and Afghanistan. Stiglitz has put the price tag from 9/11 up to the end of 2008 to 2.5 - 5 trillion US $. Today we can take the 5 trillion as a realistic tag.

Let's put Japan at 30% more than the 180 billion you quote. Then we got 250 billions, or 0.25 trillion.

Which makes the Bush & Obama wars 2000 % or 20 times more expensive than the Japan earthquake and tsunami, with the nuclear meltdown and recovery costs already included (you'll wonder, but the nuclear tragedy will be - regardless of how bad it ends - the cheapest side of the bill Japan will have to pay ....

Regards

[patman77]

05:49 PM on 03/15/2011

obama wars ? he declared war or invaded a country illegally.

[KIVPossum]

08:43 AM on 03/16/2011

Poster said Bush and Obama wars. Accurate statement

[alsm9]

11:04 AM on 03/16/2011

He doesn't seem to be in any rush to leave....so Obama's responsible now too.

[joebiteme]

11:23 PM on 03/19/2011

the most expensive disater was the election of barak in 2008 $10 Trillion in new debt in just 2 years

[HenHouse]

04:39 PM on 03/15/2011

perfect excuse to cancel earthquake policies in Cascadia, central and so cal and let us fend for ourselves.

[loki]

03:47 AM on 03/19/2011

You really think insurance is going to pay off if an earthquake hits? They will blame it on something else. Like they do for floods. Remember, Katrina where many homeowners were denied coverage as their houses were on video being destroyed by flood waters, later to find out the insurance companies decided their homes were swept away by the rains, not floods. earthquakes will likely be decided to have been caused by owners neglect,which led to infestations of gophers, which caused the earth to suck up the insured homes.