This review is concerned with the article titled “Estimation of emergency costs for earthquakes and floods in Central Asia based on modelled losses”, it is divided into three categories, namely, general comments, specific comments and technical comments.

General comments:

The article titled “Estimation of emergency costs for earthquakes and floods in Central Asia based on modelled losses” clearly reflects the contents of the paper, and the abstract provides a concise, complete and unambiguous summary of the work done and the results obtained. They both are pertinent, and easy to understand. It is well-written, and well–structured. It is concise and technically precise in clearly delivering the idea, methodology and the results. It has descriptive high-quality figures and informative tables.  It is well-referenced with proper credit attributed to previous and/or related works, and the authors clearly indicate each of their contributions. This manuscript is a part of a larger project, and there are other articles associated with it as indicated in the text and references. Thus, this article deals specifically with the methodology and, it is a high quality work. The manuscript contributes a new and interesting methodology to estimate the total emergency costs (which is a sum of the first response costs and cost of debris removal taking into account the population density and building characteristics) for natural hazards such as earthquakes and floods; tailored to five countries of Central Asia. It utilizes the latest earthquake hazard and flood models as well as exposure and vulnerability models specific to these countries of interest. Estimating such emergency costs is extremely important for comprehensive disaster risk management strategies. Thus, this manuscript has excellent scientific significance, scientific quality and presentation quality.

Specific comments:

The readers would greatly benefit if the authors could provide some clarity/elaboration on the following points. (An annotated pdf is provided to highlight the same).

1. There are certain instances where the authors write “debris removal”, and some instances where is it “debris disposal” and some instances where it is “debris removal and disposal”. It would help reduce the ambiguity if there could be a uniform usage of these term(s). For instance, on (Page 3, Line 85), (Page 4, Line 146), (Page 9, Line 310), (Page 10, Line 318).
2. From where/how were the values presented in Table 1, column “mean damage ratio (MDR)” obtained? (Is it related to a different article within the scope of the larger project in which the expected losses were calculated and then these values were calibrated to be associated with the respective DS’s?)
3. Page 4, Line 129. What does CR stand for/represent?
4. How were the values presented in Table 2, column “Cost of emergency services” obtained?
5. How were the DI estimations carried out after knowing the building type and MI, given in Table 3?

Technical corrections:

Below is a list to minor grammatical,  typographical errors in the text provided. (An annotated pdf is provided to highlight the same).

1. Grammatical errors/corrections:

a. Page 3, Line 86

Current sentence: “…population that lives on each damaged building.”

Correct sentence: ““…population that lives in each damaged building.”

b. Page 2, Line 58

Current sentence: “for the Whittier Narrows earthquake, and for 31% for the Loma Prieta earthquake”

Correct sentence: “for the Whittier Narrows earthquake, and 31% for the Loma Prieta earthquake”

c. Page 4, Line 122

Current sentence: “It is assumed that only people residing on buildings…”

Correct sentence: “It is assumed that only people residing in buildings…”

d. Page 5, Line 175

Current sentence: “As building physical attributes can vary...”

Correct sentence: “As physical attributes of buildings can vary...”

e. Page 8, Line 271

Current sentence: “For Uzbekistan, the relative TERC are considerably lower than for the other countries…”

Correct sentence: “For Uzbekistan, the relative TERC are considerably lower than the other countries…”

f. Page 10, Line 311

Current sentence: “population that lives on each of the damaged buildings...”

Correct sentence: “population that lives in each of the damaged buildings...”

g. Page 10, Line 312

Current sentence: “which values were obtained...”

Correct sentence: “for which values were obtained...”

 2. Typographical errors:

a. Page 2, Line 75 – For the (remove repeated words).

b. Page 9, Line 98 – direct (losses?) (missing word).

c. Page 6, Line 203 – Equation 3, please check the font of the “v” in the equation.

d. Page 7, Line 247 – sere (spelling mistake), Correct word: were?

e. Page 7, Line 250 – no (spelling mistake), Correct word: not?

f. Page 9, Line 280 – Table 5 (missing word)?

g. Page 9, Line 286 – Current word: “floos”, Correct word: flood/floods?

h. Page 9, Line 306 – Current word: “considerable”, Correct word: considerably?

3. The details of event #3 given in Table 4, column “Date”, do not match the details of the same event in Table 5, column “Event”.

4. The heading of the last column of Table 5 is not visible clearly.

5. Page 11, Line 363-364 - This reference format does not match the rest of the references (in formatting style). Coccia et al. (2023). Large-scale flood risk assessment in data scarce areas: an application to Central Asia. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences. (preprint under review).

This is a welcome contribution to the literature on natural hazards in Central Asia.

In the abstract, reference is made to the use of synthetic events.  Elsewhere these are termed 'counterfactual' events.  A counterfactual event is an alternative realisation of a historical event.  Such events would be useful for scenario analysis.  To avoid misunderstanding, the term 'synthetic' should be used consistently in the paper.

My biggest concern over this paper is the treatment of human factors, specifically corruption and mismanagement.  There is a significant correlation, first identified by Ambraseys and Bilham in 2011, between earthquake damage and corruption.  On the Transparency International Corruption Index, the country rankings are: Kazakhstan 101, the Kyrgyz Republic 140, Tajikistan 150, Turkmenistan 167, and Uzbekistan 121.

These rankings are worse than in other countries which are used for loss cost comparisons.

The challenge of addressing Central Asian loss costs can only be fully met if the pervasive political and socio-economic factors are explicitly assessed.  Otherwise, the results will be misleading to risk stakeholders.