Weather disasters may rise in China

The nation is bracing for a higher risk of more extreme weather as a trend toward increasing weather-related disasters has been recorded since the 1990s, top weather experts have said.

"Extreme weather will be more frequent in the future due to the instability of the atmosphere, and global warming might be the indirect cause," He Lifu, the top weather forecaster at the China Meteorological Administration (CMA), told China Daily.

He said extreme-weather events such as drought, storms and floods have already become more frequent and more severe in the country.

The CMA responded to 16 emergencies last year to address weather-related disasters, the most since 1949.

Statistics from the Ministry of Civil Affairs suggest extreme weather caused an annual economic loss of over 176.2 billion yuan ($25 billion) on average in the 1990s. But the figure rose to an annual average of 244 billion yuan ($35 billion) between 2004 and last year.