Natural calamities took two lives every hour in India in 2014

At least two people died every hour in India due to natural calamities while 36 deaths occurred due to accidents every hour in 2014, official data revealed.

Over 20,000 deaths were reported due to 'natural calamities' while there were 3,16,828 'unnatural deaths', said the National Crime Records Bureau's Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India report for 2014 released on Friday.

Among the unnatural deaths, 12.8 percent deaths were due to "lightning", 6.2 percent due to "heat and sun stroke" and 4.5 percent due to "cold".

The report said that a total of 6,36,509 cases of 'unnatural deaths' were reported during 2014.

The major cause of such deaths were road accidents, drowning, accidental fire, falls and electrocution out of which 53.4 percent were killed in road accidents.

A total of 20,377 cases of fire were reported which caused 19,513 deaths and injuries to 1,889 people.

Registering a 12.8 percent increase in accidental deaths during 2014 over 2013, there were 4,51,757 such deaths in 2014 as compared to 4,00,517 deaths in 2013.