To curb deaths from disasters, end poverty - U.N. chief

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon delivers a speech ahead of a voting session on the Paris U.N. COP 21 Climate Change agreement at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, October 4, 2016. REUTERS/Vincent Kessler

BARCELONA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Ending extreme poverty is essential to save lives and limit damage from disasters, U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon said, as figures revealed poorer nations bear the brunt of deaths from earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, storms and heat waves.

An analysis of more than 7,000 disasters over the past two decades, in which 1.35 million people died, showed 90 percent of those deaths occurred in low and middle-income countries. Ban called it "a damning indictment of inequality".