It seems that daily we're hearing about devastating natural disaster around the country -- from storms to fires to earthquakes to floods. Such perils threaten people in many areas of the world, even more so than in the U.S. Swiss Re Group, a leading wholesale provider of reinsurance and other insurance products, released a report this week that compares 616 major metropolitan areas to assess which are most threatened by five natural harzards: river floods, earthquakes, wind storms, storm surges and tsunamis.
The company did many rankings in its report. It found that river floods potentially threaten the most people -- 379 million -- around the world. Earthquakes follow at 283 million, windstorms at 157 million, storm surges at 33 million and tsunamis, 12 million.
"Natural catastrophes not only endanger human lives, but they can also significantly disrupt the local economy of a city and, in some cases, the economy of an entire country," the report noted.
The following are cities that would be highly threatened economically from natural disasters. Swiss Re ranked the cities according to a global index based on aggregate risk from the five natural hazards based on working days that would be lost. The cities are listed from least affected to most affect.
10. Taipei, Taiwan
