BEIJING, Jan. 5 -- Natural disasters claimed 1,583 lives and left another 235 missing in China in 2014, authorities said Tuesday.

Disasters affected 244 million people and displaced some 6 million, said the Civil Affairs Ministry and the National Committee for Disaster Reduction in a joint statement. The statement also said "losses caused by disasters were less than in previous years."

Disasters resulted in direct economic losses of 337.4 billion yuan (54.2 billion U.S. dollars), less than 580.84 billion yuan the previous year.

Some 450,000 houses were destroyed and more than 3.5 million damaged. Disasters affected nearly 24.89 million hectares (ha) of farmland, with over 3 million ha yielding no crops at all.

The statement said all indicators measuring natural disasters were down, with the number of missing people and destroyed homes down by 80 percent compared with the average of the years between 2000 to 2013.

But strong earthquakes in west China still caused heavy losses, the statement cited 22 earthquakes of magnitude 5 or above and six of magnitude 6 or above. A 6.5 magnitude quake that hit Ludian in the southwest province of Yunnan on Aug. 3 had the third-highest death toll, , resulting in 617 deaths, after Wenchuan in 2008, and Yushu in 2010.