Smoking killed more than 72-thousand people in 2022 and cost the nation an estimated 13-point-six trillion won, or almost 10 billion U.S. dollars.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency presented the data on Friday, saying the number of deaths directly attributable to smoking showed a steady increase over a three-year period, posting 61-thousand-360 in 2020, 63-thousand-426 in 2021 and 72-thousand-689 in 2022.

Compared with their nonsmoking peers, male smokers faced one-point-seven times the risk of death, while female smokers were one-point-eight times as likely to die as female nonsmokers.

The estimated social and economic costs of smoking amounted to 16-point-63 trillion won in 2022, up from 12-point-97 trillion won in 2021 and 12-point-89 trillion won in 2020.

Those figures include medical and transportation fees incurred due to illness, as well as indirect costs such as lost productivity from premature death or the use of medical services.