Direct losses of the Australian economy after forest fires will amount to about $ 3.5 billion, TASS reported referring tot the one of the largest financial and credit organizations in Austria Westpac.
According to the statement, as of January 10 insurance companies in Australia filed 10.55 thousand claims with a total insured value of about 939 million Australian dollars ($ 645.6 million). As the bank’s experts indicate in their forecast, uninsured losses requiring state compensation are about twice the size of the insured. Thus, taking into account the already allocated 2 billion Australian dollars ($ 1.4 billion) by the authorities, the total cost of the disaster today is likely to be about 5 billion Australian dollars ($ 3.54 billion).
According to Westpac experts, the fires affecting some of the most densely populated areas of the continent had an extremely negative effect on agriculture. Farmers were forced to slaughter thousands of cattle, the destruction of power plants affected dairy production, and a number of vineyards were destroyed amid the fires. The restoration of these capacities will require significant financial investments and time.
However, as indicated in the forecast, the greatest damage should be expected in the country's tourism industry. The widespread media coverage of fires in the world, air pollution in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne are likely to have a significant impact on Australia’s image as a place to rest and this will reduce the flow of tourists to the country.
The economic costs of the effects of smoke and pollution on human health are more difficult to quantify, but they can also be significant, Westpac said.
Large-scale forest fires broke out on the east coast of Australia in mid-October last year. As a result of fires 26 people died, including five firefighters, and more than 8.5 million hectares of forest were destroyed, about 3 thousand residential buildings and more than 6 thousand administrative and utility buildings. According to Australian scientists, more than 1 billion animals died as a result of fires.
