No continent is more vulnerable to natural disasters than Asia, the world's largest and most populous region. It has the dubious distinction of being home to some of the world's leading natural disaster-related hot spots.
One fact confirms Asia's status as a high humanitarian risk area: It accounts for the majority of all people killed, injured or uprooted by natural disasters globally in the past four decades. In the first half of 2014, 820 people were killed and 31 million affected in 56 disasters in Asia, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Looking a little further back and including the humanitarian impact of Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippine island of Leyte last November, the estimated death toll exceeds 10,000.
