More can be done to anticipate and then to act in confronting floods, earthquakes and fires and their risks to economic and social development, the World Bank said on Friday.

In a new report named "Hazards of Nature, Risks to Development", the bank said that natural disasters destroyed 652 billion dollars in property worldwide in the 1990s alone, an amount 15 times higher in real terms compared to the 1950s and approximately 2.6 billion people were affected by natural disasters over the past 10 years, compared to 1.6 billion the previous decade.

Developing countries have borne the brunt of these catastrophes, accounting for over 95 percent of all casualties, the report said. Losses from natural disasters have averaged nearly 15 percent of the GDP in the world's poorest countries in the past two decades, a time during which more than 4 billion people in the world were directly affected.

The report said failure to anticipate natural disasters and lack of preparedness have major consequences when disaster strikes in known hotspots.

The report urges the World Bank, other development agencies and countries to apply lessons learned and to adopt new approaches for disaster preparedness and response.

The report is released by World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group. Vinod Thomas, the group's director-general, said that the report was "the first comprehensive evaluation of World Bank assistance for disasters", the most in-depth evaluation of natural disaster projects attempted to date" and long overdue.

Source: Xinhua