Bruna Alves
Research lead covering environment and sustainability
Natural disasters - statistics & facts
Natural disasters are profoundly destructive events, leaving a trail of injury, death, property damage, and economic loss in their wake. Examples of such events include earthquakes, hurricanes, storms, floods, droughts, and wildfires. Over the past decade, an average of 417 natural disasters have been recorded annually worldwide. However, in the face of changing weather patterns and rising temperatures, many experts believe the probability, frequency, and intensity of these events is set to increase.
While the loss of human lives is unarguably the worst consequence of natural disasters, they also cost societies billions of dollars each year. Unlike deaths, the economic losses due to natural disasters worldwide have seen an upward trend since the beginning of the century, and amounted to 380 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. This result has mostly been associated with climate change, as extreme weather and climate events become more frequent and expose regions previously not affected. In fact, six of the 10 costliest disasters in the past century all happened since 2010. The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in 2011, and destroyed much of the Fukushima nuclear plant, remains the costliest natural disaster worldwide since 1900, with losses of more than 200 billion U.S. dollars.
As global warming is expected to increase the intensity of storms, heat waves, wildfires, cyclones, and droughts, more people, land, and infrastructure are expected to be vulnerable to their impacts. Adaptation investments will be crucial to increase the world’s resilience to these destructive catastrophes.
Largest natural disasters
The deadliest natural disaster worldwide since 1950 was the Bhola cyclone, which hit Bangladesh in November 1970, and resulted in an estimated 300,000 deaths. Another three disasters since then, including two in the late 1970s, also caused more than 200,000 deaths each. Nevertheless, a development in detection and warning systems have contributed to significantly reducing the death toll of individual disasters and the overall number of natural disaster deaths around the world in the past decade.While the loss of human lives is unarguably the worst consequence of natural disasters, they also cost societies billions of dollars each year. Unlike deaths, the economic losses due to natural disasters worldwide have seen an upward trend since the beginning of the century, and amounted to 380 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. This result has mostly been associated with climate change, as extreme weather and climate events become more frequent and expose regions previously not affected. In fact, six of the 10 costliest disasters in the past century all happened since 2010. The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in 2011, and destroyed much of the Fukushima nuclear plant, remains the costliest natural disaster worldwide since 1900, with losses of more than 200 billion U.S. dollars.
Countries and regions affected
In 2023, the U.S. recorded the highest number of natural disasters worldwide , with 25 occurrences. Brazil also ranked among the top affected countries. While the Americas was the region with the highest economic damage that year, the highest share of fatalities by far was registered in Asia, accounting for nearly three-quarters of deaths worldwide. The Asian continent also had the highest number of people affected by natural disasters in 2023. This is in large part a result of the earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria in February that year, which alone caused around 57,000 fatalities.As global warming is expected to increase the intensity of storms, heat waves, wildfires, cyclones, and droughts, more people, land, and infrastructure are expected to be vulnerable to their impacts. Adaptation investments will be crucial to increase the world’s resilience to these destructive catastrophes.
