Extreme weather events affected 55 million people around the world in 2009, a disaster reduction agency said Monday.

At a joint press conference in Copenhagen, the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) said that although preliminary reports showed there were fewer natural disasters in 2009, the majority were weather-related.

From Jan. 1 to Nov. 30, 224 out of 245 disasters were weather-related, causing 7,000 out of 8,900 deaths and resulting in 15 billion U.S. dollars of economic damages out of 19 billion, according to the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED).

"Statistics this year show lower figures compared to previous years, which is good news for people and countries, however extreme weather disasters remain at the top of the list and will continue to affect more people in the future," Margareta Wahlstrom,UN Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, said a statement.Floods and storms composed the majority of extreme weather events, it added.

Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Michel Jarraud, said while the number of natural disasters and its resulting economic damages had "increased between 10 and 50 times, the reported loss of life has dramatically been reduced by a factor of 10" in the last 50 years.

Climate-related natural disasters have climbed from less than 50 a year in the 1950s to between 350 and 450 a year in the 2000s.

The UN Climate Change Conference is being held in Copenhagen to find a joint way to deal with the worsening climate change.

(Xinhua News Agency December 15, 2009)