Tipping point: Climate disasters have cost India over $120 bn since 2000

About 2 per cent of the total deaths in 2022 were due to forces of nature, NCRB data shows. Over 8,000 people lost their lives due to such events that year compared to 6,800 in 2018

Climate disasters have affected over a billion Indians and cost the country over $120 billion this century. Natural disasters in India, including floods, landslides and the glacial lake outburst in Sikkim, affected over 15 million people and caused over 2,000 deaths in 2023, according to climate disaster database EM-DAT.

In 2000, over 100 million Indians were affected by climate disasters. In 2015, 347 million were hit – the highest this century, when 10 instances of flooding were reported across India. That year, more than 3,000 people lost their lives to these disasters (chart 1).



Data from