GENEVA  - Global losses from natural disasters hit $138 billion in 2012, with half the sum claimed by drought and Hurricane Sandy in the United States, the UN said Thursday. Hurricane Sandy, which lashed the US east coast in October, caused some $50 billion of the losses recorded in 2012, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) said. The next most costly disaster was also in the US, where a drought centred in the south of the country cost $20 billion. It was the third year in a row in which losses linked to natural disasters topped $100 billion, and the 10th in the past three decades, UNISDR said.