Weather disasters over past five decades 'have increased five-fold'

" The number of weather-related disasters to hit the world has increased five-fold over the past 50 years, says the World Meteorological Organisation.

However, the number of deaths because of the greater number of storms, floods and droughts has fallen sharply.

Scientists say that climate change, more extreme weather and better reporting are behind the rise in these extreme events. But improvements to warning systems have helped limit the number of deaths.

As global temperatures have risen in recent decades, there has been a significant uptick in the number of disasters related to weather and water extremes.

In the 50 years between 1970 and 2019, there were more than 11,000 such disasters, according to a new atlas from the WMO that charts the scale of these events."