Cyclones, floods displaced 12.5m people in South Asia in 2022: report

Natural disasters, including cyclones and devastating floods, triggered internal displacement of 12.5 million people in South Asia in 2022 and Bangladesh, India and Pakistan were the most affected by floods, says a report by Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

Most displacements occurred during the south west monsoon between June and September, it said.

Ninety percent internal displacement in South Asia in 2022 was caused by floods, reports our New Delhi correspondent quoting the report.

Last year, Bangladesh and India began experiencing flooding even before the official onset of the monsoon season.

The IDMC said disaster reports in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan tend only to be produced for medium- to large-scale events, meaning small-scale disasters that together could lead to significantly higher displacement figures are not included.

A low intensity monsoon season and the absence of destructive storms led to a decrease in new disaster displacements in Bangladesh in 2021 when 99,000 were recorded, more than three-quarters of them during monsoon.

Cyclone Yaas had struck the Bay of Bengal in May and triggered 18,000 displacements. Though this is significantly fewer than in previous years, it is to be expected given that severe cyclones tend to hit Bangladesh every two or three years, according to the report.

Despite the lower figures, the risk of secondary displacement and prolonged humanitarian needs is still high in Bangladesh because disasters affect the same areas each year. Yaas, for example, affected Khulna and Barishal divisions, where Cyclone Amphan had triggered 2.5 million displacements in May 2020. At least 15,000 people were displaced in Khulna as a result of Amphan as of February 2021, according to the IDMC report.

The number of disaster displacements worldwide rose by nearly 40 percent in 2022 compared to the previous year, reaching 32.6 million, largely the result of the effects of La Niña which continued for a third consecutive year.

South Asia recorded the highest regional figure, surpassing East Asia and the Pacific for the first time in a decade.