Each year, natural disasters such as storms, floods, volcanoes and earthquakes cause the death of thousands of people and tremendous damage to property around the world, displacing tens of thousands of people from their homes and destroying their livelihoods. From 1994 to 2003 there were more than 300 natural disasters on average each year, impacting more than 100 countries, killing over 50,000 people, affecting nearly 260 million people and causing economic damage totalling US$ 55 billion each year. The impact of natural disasters on developing countries is particularly severe. In some instances, disasters destroyed in minutes the progress in social and economic development that developing countries had made over a period of years.