Which is more damaging: Hurricane, or typhoon, or cyclone?

It is not the meteorology in which I am interested.

All these are natural events.  And, yes, human activities warming up the world have added power to them.

But, a natural event by itself is merely a natural event.  It is the equivalent of the old philosophical question on whether a tree falling in a forest makes a sound if there is nobody to hear it.  These natural events become "disasters" and "catastrophes" only because they affect us humans.

So, in such a framework, which is the more damaging event?

Consider one of those tropical storms making landfall where no humans live.  It will, of course, uproot trees and flood the rivers.  Is there any damage?

Now, consider one of those tropical storms making landfall in one of the sparsely populated islands in the Philippines.  And then imagine if a storm goes through the Bangladeshi coast.  The number of humans who will be affected will be vastly different, right?

Does it matter that the average Bangladeshi is poorer than the typical Filipino?

Now consider a hurricane hitting the southeastern coast of the US.  Does the "disaster" become costlier because the typical American and the property are way more "expensive"?

One doesn't even need to look beyond Wikipedia for this:

The costs of disasters vary considerably depending on a range of factors, such as the geographical location where they occur. When a disaster occurs in a densely populated area in a wealthy country, the financial damage might be huge, but when a comparable disaster occurs in a densely populated area in a poorer country, the actual financial damage might be relatively small, in part due to a lack of insurance. For example, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, with a death toll of over 230,000 people, cost a 'mere' $15 billion,^[1] whereas in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in which 11 people died, the damages were six-fold.

This is an issue that I have struggling with ever since my graduate school days: The "cost" of life varies.  It boggles my mind.  In that Wiki example, a quarter million people perished, but the "cost" of the disaster was low because it all happened in the emerging economies.

It is such economic logic that led Larry Summers, back when he was the World Bank's chief economist, to write that controversial memo, from which he later back-pedaled saying it was a thought experiment and was sarcastic.  That memo joked about the low earnings in emerging economies leading to the "cost" of pollution being lower there and, therefore, polluting industries should migrate to those poorer countries.  In reality, isn't that how the world has operated over the past three decades?

Rich people's lives and property are valued more than poor people's lives are.  As long as this framework does not change, the "costliest" natural disasters will happen only in rich countries.

Therefore, cyclones are the "cheapest" of those storms!

Such is life.