EM-DAT / Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters

New Capabilities

Primary global disaster database

In the 1920s, natural disasters killed an average of 500,000 people per year. Today, with four times the global population, that number has dropped to roughly 45,000—a 99% decline in the per-capita death rate. The transformation happened not through divine intervention or luck, but through a century of investment in weather satellites, building codes, early warning networks, and agricultural science that turned existential threats into manageable emergencies.

Updated May 22