Global number of reported natural disasters by the number of deaths
What you should know about this indicator
- EM-DAT defines a disaster as a situation or event which overwhelms local capacity, necessitating a request to the national or international level for external assistance; an unforeseen and often sudden event that causes great damage, destruction, and human suffering. Of all EM-DAT disasters, we select geophysical, meteorological, hydrological, and climatological events, which include droughts, earthquakes, extreme temperatures, floods, glacial lake outburst floods, mass movements, extreme weather events, volcanic activity, and wildfires.
- EM-DAT counts deaths as deceased and missing people combined, as a result of a natural disaster.
- A disaster has an unknown number of deaths if there is no data available on the number of total deaths for that reported event.
Related research and writing
Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
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Citations
How to cite this page
To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:
“Data Page: Global number of reported natural disasters by the number of deaths”. Our World in Data (2024). Data adapted from EM-DAT, CRED / UCLouvain. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/natural-disasters-reported-by-deaths [online resource]How to cite this data
In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:
EM-DAT, CRED / UCLouvain (2024) – with major processing by Our World in DataFull citation
EM-DAT, CRED / UCLouvain (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Global number of reported natural disasters by the number of deaths” [dataset]. EM-DAT, CRED / UCLouvain, “Natural disasters” [original data]. Retrieved July 27, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/natural-disasters-reported-by-deaths