Cancer and heart diseases were among the major causes of death for South Koreans in 2022, data showed Thursday, with the total number of deaths hitting a new record.
Last year, the total number of deaths reported in the country came to 372,939, up 17.4 percent from a year earlier, according to Statistics Korea. It was the highest figure since the agency began compiling such data in 1983.
The agency said 727.6 deaths were reported per 100,000 South Koreans last year.
Cancer was the major cause of death, taking up 83,378, or 22.4 percent, followed by heart disease with 33,715, or 9 percent. The data also showed that COVID-19 took up 8.4 percent of the total deaths.
Suicide, meanwhile, was the sixth-largest cause of death for South Koreans in 2022. A total of 12,906 people took their own lives in 2022, down 3.3 percent from a year earlier.
It remained the main cause of death for people aged between 10 and 39 in South Korea in 2022, a chronic problem that has plagued the Asian country for more than a decade. Suicide was the second leading cause of death for people in their 40s and 50s as well.
On average, 35.4 people died every day from suicide last year.
The suicide rate per 100,000 people stood at 22.6 in 2022, much higher than the 10.6 average among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of 36 mostly rich and advanced nations.
Source: Yonhap News Agency