Two hurricanes cost US US$70 billion to US$130 billion: report

The physical economic losses of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are estimated between 70 and 130 billion US dollars, according to a US Congressional report.

However, the US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said in the report Thursday that this figure is well below the 140-billion- dollar cost estimated earlier by the international risk evaluation firm Risk Management Solutions.

Among the total losses, the damage to homes and other residences will be between 17 billion and 33 billion dollars while the energy sector's loss is expected to be between 18 billion and 31 billion dollars, it said.

The rest of the losses are in other businesses and public infrastructure, according to the CBO.

The US economy will feel the impact of the storms only for a few months before starting to recover in the fourth quarter, it said.

The country's total economic output will be slashed down by one to 1.5 percentage points in the third quarter as a result.

Meanwhile, job loss caused by the two hurricane is estimated between 293,000 and 480,000.

However, with huge investment pouring into cleanup and reconstruction schemes in the Gulf Coast, the US economy will grow as usual in the last quarter, or even faster than expected.

Hurricane Katrina hit US Gulf Coast on Aug. 29 and became the worst natural disaster in American history, killing at least 1,212 and displacing millions of people.

Hurricane Rita made landfall on the same area on Sept. 24, but the impact was much less than the previous one.

Source: Xinhua