Asia's fast economic growth has increased the region's vulnerability to natural disasters, with new developments springing up in catastrophe-prone areas, the UN warned on Tuesday. Asia-Pacific countries suffered "staggering" losses of $294 billion from natural disasters last year, with the Thai floods and Japan's quake-tsunami major contributors to the huge bill, the United Nations report said.
GDP per capita in the region has increased 13-fold since 1980 but disaster losses have risen 16-fold, it said.