Natural disasters since 1900 'have cost $7 trillion'

Natural disasters have caused more than $7 trillion (6.2 trillion euros) in economic damage worldwide since 1900, with floods and storms accounting for nearly 60 percent of the total, researchers said Monday. The death toll from such natural calamities -- which also include earthquakes, volcanoes, droughts, heatwaves and wildfires -- topped eight million from 1900 to 2015, according to findings presented at a meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna. More than a third -- 38.5 percent