There is a one-in-three chance the world could be struck by a huge crisis that would affect people worst than coronavirus in the next 10 years, analysts have revealed.
The fear-mongering research from Deutsche Bank speculates that there is a 33 per cent chance one of four disasters could strike.
They say that either a major influenza pandemic killing more than 2 million people, a globally catastrophic volcanic eruption, a major solar flare, or a global war could occur.
Analysts say if the time frame is extended to two decades, then there is a 56 per cent chance of one of these disasters occurring.
The gloomy report said: "There could be major power outages as electrical power grids are disrupted, which in turn would have knock-on effects throughout the economy as critical infrastructure is unable to be run properly.
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"Lives could be lost if it impacted hospitals and medical care.
"Communications would be disrupted, many payment systems would be dysfunctional, and GPS satellites would face extensive interference, to the detriment of all the individuals and industries that rely on accurate location services, not least aircraft."
The analysts didn’t suggest an investment strategy around their findings.
Deutsche Bank, who carried out the research on behalf of their clients, said: "Before Covid-19 occurred, Madhav et al. [in 2017] estimated there was an annual probability of 2 per cent that an influenza pandemic will cause 2.2 million pneumonia and influenza deaths or more globally.
"Given that Covid-19 has led to a severe recessions and lockdowns in numerous countries, an even more serious pandemic could be even more catastrophic.
"Consider that the relatively remote Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland shut down nearly all of European airspace in 2010, leading to extensive economic disruption.
"And further back in 1991, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines was so large it actually led to a reduction in global temperatures over the subsequent two years."
"So an important question is what would happen if a much larger, more catastrophic eruption occurred, and how likely is this to happen."
