Flood fatalities mount as insurers, governments assess costs

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Flood fatalities mount as insurers, governments assess costs

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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s pledge to make up to €10 billion in recovery funds available for Europe’s deadly floods this week follows estimates that insurers are facing up to €3 billion in claims.

The quasi-stationary low pressure system dubbed Storm Boris became wedged between two high pressure systems, generating relentless rain across central Europe for several days, leading to more than two dozen estimated deaths in 20 countries.

Thousands of homes and businesses, as well as vehicles, infrastructure and farms, have been flooded in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia and Romania. Authorities have warned that floodwaters could continue to flow through cities in the coming days. The storm moved to northern Italy at the end of the week, prompting the evacuation of residents in the Emilia-Romagna region.

Reinsurance broker Gallagher Re said in a report published midweek that there was a “growing expectation” that the flooding of recent days would be one of the costliest extreme weather events on record in the region.

However, advanced forecasting and investment in flood defences have limited potential losses, Gallagher Re added. For example, Prague deployed a series of mobile and fixed barriers that were put in place after the catastrophic floods of 2002.

Italian Air Force helicopter evacuations in the village of Traversara, near Ravenna, on Thursday © AFP via Getty Images

The focus of reinsurers and insurers has increasingly shifted to flood risk in Europe in recent years, the broker said, following several costly events in 1997, 2002 and 2013. Earlier in 2024, major floods in southern Germany also resulted in at least $2 billion in insured losses.

Storm systems originating near the Gulf of Genoa are known to generate high-impact flooding, the reinsurer noted, including those that occurred in southern Germany and parts of central Europe in May and June this year.

Although each weather event involved a different set of meteorological factors, record sea surface temperatures in the Mediterranean and the resulting evaporation fueled this year’s storms.

Warm seas and opposing weather fronts contributed to flooding in Europe. Maps showing air temperature at a pressure level of 850 millibars (°C) and sea surface temperature anomaly (°C) across Europe

The world has experienced the hottest August quarter on record. The month has been marked by a series of extreme temperatures, with floods on four continents, the most recent affecting Vietnam, China and the southern states of the United States, and a surge in wildfires in regions such as the Amazon and Portugal.

Devastating floods in West and Central Africa In recent weeks, violence has resulted in the deaths of around 1,000 people and the displacement of hundreds of thousands.

Severe flooding has hit northeastern Nigeria, where 400,000 people have been displaced after the Alau Dam burst, authorities said. © AFP via Getty Images

The international group of climate scientists known as the World Weather Attribution research group has yet to release its findings on the contribution of global warming to the most recent events.

But its co-founder Friederike Otto said this week that the record heat seen over the past 12 months would not have been possible without climate change and that it had contributed to six of the eight heatwaves studied. The group’s preliminary report on European floods is expected next week.

But the flooding continued “over a period of months and years that saw high annual variability, with intense drought and/or abnormal rainfall across Europe,” Gallagher Re said. “These fluctuations are consistent with climate change research, which suggests a high frequency of shifts from one weather extreme to another.”

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