Recorded natural hazard events from 2000 to 2025, filterable by hazard type and by events, deaths, or people affected.
Natural hazard events recorded 2000-2025, aggregated by country. Source: EM-DAT, CRED / Universite catholique de Louvain. EM-DAT records events meeting at least one threshold: ten or more deaths, a hundred or more people affected, a declaration of emergency, or a call for international assistance. Reporting quality varies between countries and hazard types, so differences partly reflect monitoring capacity rather than exposure alone. People affected is generally a better guide to impact than event counts, which favour large and well-monitored countries.
EM-DAT is maintained by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters at UCLouvain, and has recorded disasters worldwide since 1900. It is the reference database for disaster research.
An event enters the database if it meets at least one of four criteria: ten or more deaths, a hundred or more people affected, a declaration of a state of emergency, or a call for international assistance.
This page shows natural hazards only. EM-DAT also records technological disasters — industrial accidents, transport crashes — which are excluded here.
This is the least straightforward dataset on the site, and the caution is worth stating plainly.
Recorded events are not the same as events. Systematic recording began in earnest around 1988. Apparent increases over time partly reflect improved reporting, wider media coverage, and better international communication rather than a rise in hazard occurrence alone.
Reporting quality varies enormously between countries. A country with strong civil protection agencies and free media records more events than one without. A map of recorded disasters is partly a map of monitoring capacity.
This is why the default metric is people affected. Event counts systematically favour large, well-monitored countries. Deaths and people affected are closer to actual impact, though they too depend on what gets reported.
Coverage is uneven by hazard type. Sudden-onset events like earthquakes and floods are recorded more consistently than slow-onset ones like drought and extreme temperature.
EM-DAT, the International Disaster Database, Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, Université catholique de Louvain, Brussels. Free for non-commercial use.