Taipei, Nov. 30 (CNA) Taiwan was placed 44th among more than 190 countries around the world in the 2012 Global Climate Risk Index published by the Germanywatch, a Germany-based non-government organization devoted to the promotion of sustainable development, Tuesday.

The ranking indicated Taiwan was among the top 25 percent of the studied countries that were affected by extreme weather such as flooding and storms in 2010 and during the past 20 years.

It's the seventh year Germanwatch issued the index, which analyzes the quantified impacts of extreme weather events, including tropical storms, winter storms, severe weather, hail, tornado and local storms, based on data from Munich Re NatCatSERVICE -one of the world's leading data bases on the issue.

The quantified impacts are concretized on the fatality and economic losses of each studied country, according to the Germanwatch.

In the 2012 index, Pakistan, Guatemala and Colombia ranked as the top three countries most affected by extreme climate.

"More than 1,500 people died in Pakistan after flooding across the country, causing damages of several billion dollars," said Sven Harmeling, the index's author, in a statement of the 2012 index.

Flooding and storms in 2010 "left their footprint in this year's Climate Risk Index," Harmeling said.

The top 10 most affected countries also include Russia, Honduras, Oman, Poland, Portugal, China and Tajikistan, according to the index.

The report also said from 1991 to 2010, there were 710,000 deaths caused by weather extremes, as well as damage of more than US$2.3 trillion. All the top 10 countries that have been mostly hit by weather extremes during the past 20 years were developing countries, including Bangladesh, Myanmar and Honduras, the report said. (By Zoe Wei and Elizabeth Hsu)