Heavy global death toll from disasters

Last year's Indian Ocean tsunami caused the 2004 global death toll from natural disasters to triple from the previous year to about a quarter of a million - the highest total in almost 30 years, the international Red Cross said on Wednesday.

Discounting the tsunami, the 2004 total would have been near 25,000 - one of the lowest figures on record.

The previous highest totals from natural disasters - excluding long-term events such as famines - came in 1970 when about 500,000 people were killed in a cyclone in Bangladesh, and in 1976 when 240,000 died in an earthquake in China.