While winter weather pelted the U.S. heartland in December causing millions of dollars in damage and close to 30 deaths, the Philippines suffered from Super Typhoon Bopha, which struck the island of Mindanao taking close to 2,000 lives, says Aon Benfield.
The reinsurance broker's catastrophe modeler Impact Forecasting released its "December 2012 Global Catastrophe Recap," recounting what was a busy and deadly month from weather events throughout the world.
Super Typhoon Bopha struck on Dec. 4 as a Category 5 typhoon with sustained winds of 160 mph. The storm left more than 1,901 people dead or missing and injured 2,666 others.
Damage was widespread from the three-day event, with economic damage in excess of $1.04 billion.
Piling on the destruction, Tropical Storm Wukong struck the Philippines later in the month taking more than 24 lives, damaging more than 6,439 homes and causing in $5.5 million-plus in economic damage.
The Asia region also experienced three earthquakes, three flooding events and one winter-weather event in India that took 114 or more lives.
"The cyclonic weather that Southeast Asia and the South Pacific experienced during December has had a devastating effect on local populations," says Steve Jakubowski, president of Impact Forecasting in a statement. "Insurance and reinsurance penetration in the affected territories is significantly lower than in the more mature western markets, so the impact of a weather system such as Super Typhoon Bopha on the Philippines places an even greater strain on regional recovery efforts and the availability of sufficient government aid."
Elsewhere, winter storms in the United States and Europe took more than 300 lives and cost well over $125 million in economic loss.
A late December storm system was the most destructive in the United States, taking 17 lives and causing well above $100 million in economic loss, with a record 28 tornadoes recorded in the Southeast.
Bone-chilling temperatures, dipping down to minus-8, were responsible for killing 277 people in Eastern Europe and producing more than $25 million in economic damage at the end of December.
Elsewhere, a rare tornado in New Zealand killed three people and caused more than $9 million on Dec. 6, the deadliest tornado event to hit there in 60 years.
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