The report from the climate and development organisation Germanwatch was released on December 8 at a workshop on the sidelines of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Germanwatch ranked Bangladesh top of the index with natural disasters claiming 8,241 lives and damaging property worth US$2.18 billion a year on average. It is followed by Myanmar, Honduras, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Haiti, India, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines and China.

600,000 deaths and a loss of US$1,700 billion are direct consequences from more than 11,000 extreme weather events in these countries in the period, Germanwatch said. In Vietnam alone, on yearly average, natural disasters claim the lives of more than 450 people and cause the loss of over US$1.5 billion.

No developed country is on the top-ten list of countries worst affected by extreme weather. On the top 20, there are only four developed countries: Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United States.

"Extreme weather is increasingly threatening lives and economic values across the world, and it will likely grow larger in the future due to climate change. Our analyses show that in particular poor countries are severely affected," Sven Harmeling, author of the report, remarked.

Meanwhile, Christoph Bals, Germanwatch’s Political Director, pointed out that it is first and foremost the duty of industrialised countries to implement an adaptation framework for the most vulnerable developing countries.

The report analyses the impacts of weather-related events - mainly storms, floods and heat-waves - for all countries currently negotiating in Copenhagen.