The natural world is the most beautiful and wondrous thing to explore, but it must be respected at all times. This is not just to protect the delicate balance of nature, but also because it can be a dangerous place, filled with unforgiving climates, harsh landscapes and deadly creatures. All of these can be avoided with the help of expert knowledge and proper planning, though the same cannot be said for natural disasters.
Natural disasters are often completely outside of human control and are some of the most dangerous events to occur on planet earth. What’s more, with climate change disrupting the natural order of the elements, we’re beginning to see some natural disasters such as floods and fierce storms become ever more frequently occurring. Not only this, but as the world’s human population continues to grow to record levels, we are more than ever in need of environmentally stable areas to live.
With this in mind, we at Outforia wanted to investigate just how deadly natural disasters can be, and where in the world are you most likely to face the threat of one of these elemental calamities?
The Deadliest Disaster Types
To begin, we first wanted to find out which disaster types have historically been the most deadly. We’ve looked at data for the last 20 years as well as all-time records to reveal the types of natural disasters with the most recorded deaths.
Since Records Began
Here we can see the total number of deaths for each disaster since records began.
Droughts have caused the highest number of deaths, with more than 11.7 million fatalities attributed to a prolonged lack of rain. The second most deadly disaster type is floods, which have caused almost 7 million deaths worldwide. This is followed by earthquakes and storms in third and fourth place, causing 2.3 and 1.4 million deaths respectively.
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Taking a more recent view of the dangers of natural disasters is important as it takes into account humanity’s more recent levels of development and ability to respond to climate disasters, while also reflecting the effects of continued climate change.
Here we can see that earthquakes have caused the most deaths since 2000 with 721,311 fatalities attributed to these events, with storms taking second place on 201,485 casualties. Deaths by extreme temperatures are the third most common, with 172,266 fatalities, while floods are the fourth most deadly disaster type of recent years having killed 110,798 people.
Droughts have accumulated a much smaller share of overall deaths, with just 21,291 people dying as a direct consequence, suggesting that either droughts are becoming less common, or that we are more well-equipped to deal with the fallout of these events than we have been in the past.
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Having looked at global figures for the death counts attributed to each type of natural disaster, we now take a more targeted approach by highlighting the parts of the world that have seen the most deaths caused by each disaster type from 2000 to 2020.
Floods
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Deaths: 29,706
The country with the highest number of deaths caused by floods since 2000 is India, where 29,706 people have reportedly died from the effects of flooding. India is a country that experiences a heavy monsoon season, stretching from June to September, which can cause flash floods as well as other knock-on effects such as the destruction of homes, crops, and wildlife habitats.
2013 was the most deadly year on record for flooding in India with 6,453 recorded deaths, just exceeding the previous high of 6,452 deaths recorded in 1968. Floods can cause other environmental disasters such as landslides and rockfalls which in turn can cause further deaths and prevent aid from reaching isolated communities.
Earthquakes
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Deaths: 222,587
The Caribbean country of Haiti, located on the western end of Hispaniola island, is the most dangerous country in the world when it comes to earthquakes. From 2000 to 2020 there have been 222,587 deaths caused by earthquakes in the country, with nearly all of these caused by the 2010 Haiti earthquake which devastated the country.
Haiti is still recovering from the monumental damage caused by the 2010 quake, and as recently as last year experienced another deadly seismic event that left at least 2,248 people dead, though these figures are too recent to be included in the above dataset.
Earthquakes happen on fault lines where the huge tectonic plates that make up the earth’s crust meet one another. When these plates move it can cause huge amounts of friction that sends tremors for hundreds of miles in every direction. Earthquakes often do little more than make the earth tremble slightly beneath your feet, but stronger events can cause buildings to collapse and even flatten entire hillsides.
If a large earthquake happens at sea, it can cause a huge tidal wave called a tsunami that can devastate coastal and island communities, such as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan that killed just under 20,000 people.
Storms
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Deaths: 138,716
Myanmar is the country that has been worst-affected by storm events in recent years, having attributed 138,716 deaths to these events from 2000 to 2020. Again, the vast majority of these fatalities (138,366) were caused by a single event, which in this case was the 2008 Cyclone Nargis.
This cyclone was incredibly destructive, making landfall in the Myanmar town of Wagon on the 2nd of May with wind speeds of 217 km/h before proceeding inland and along the Irrawaddy Delta. This was the greatest natural disaster Myanmar has ever experienced, causing immense structural damage in the former capital of Yangon as well as many other populated areas, and decimating the country’s rice paddies, a key part of Myanmar’s food production.
Drought
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Deaths: 20,002
The country to have suffered the most deaths due to drought since 2000 is Somalia, which recorded 20,002 deaths between the years 2000 and 2020. Nearly all of these were recorded in 2010 when a severe drought struck the country, although the famine which was caused by this event is estimated to have killed almost 260,000 people from 2010 to 2012. This mirrors a similar drought that took place in the country in 1992 which led to a famine that saw 220,000 people die.
Droughts are caused by much drier atmospheric conditions than an area is used to, that lead to severe water shortages. These are most common in hot countries, which further exacerbates the problem as any existing water may dry up before the drought is over. Climate change and changes to jet streams and air currents can all increase the likelihood of droughts taking place, and they often lead to food shortages and famine as crops fail due to the lack of water.
Extreme Temperatures
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Deaths: 57,350
Russia is the country that has recorded the most deaths from extreme temperatures since 2000, with 57,350 fatalities. The vast majority of these occurred in 2010 when the country experienced a massive heatwave that was completely uncharacteristic for the country’s normally cold climate. As well as causing over 55,000 deaths, the heatwave led to a 25% drop in annual crop production and cost the Russian economy in excess of $15 billion.
With the ever-mounting effects of climate change causing global temperatures to rise and extreme weather events to be more common, even well-developed countries in more temperate areas that are usually safe from natural disasters are now at risk. As we can see in the top 10 countries most affected by extreme temperatures, all are major economies, and nine are located in or adjacent to Europe. This highlights that countries that are unused to severe climate issues will have to rethink their approach to weather events and plan ahead for unforeseen disaster scenarios.
Wildfires
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Deaths: 302
The United States is the country that has seen the highest death toll from wildfires since 2000, recording 302 fatalities. A large portion of these occurred in 2018 during the California wildfires that swept through large swathes of the state along with parts of Oregon. The severity of these wildfires was attributed to a number of factors including a build-up of dead trees and plant matter from previous droughts that acted as fuel and accelerant, quickly spreading the fires over huge areas.
However it is Australia, which saw the second-highest number of wildfire deaths at 243, that recorded the highest annual death toll since 2000. 2009 saw the Black Saturday Bush Fires, a series of wildfires that were burning across the state of Victoria on and around Saturday the 7th of February. A total of 173 people lost their lives in these fires, bringing the country’s total number of wildfire deaths to 180 for the year.
Volcanic Activity
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Deaths: 820
Indonesia is the country with the highest death toll from volcanic activity in the 21st century, having recorded 820 fatalities from 2000 to 2020. Over half of these occurred in 2018 with the eruption of Krakatoa, a volcano between the islands of Java and Sumatra. This eruption caused a tidal wave that affected more than 186 miles of coastline belonging to these two islands, with the tsunami leaving 437 people dead.
There is very little you can do to prevent the destruction that volcanic eruptions cause, other than implementing warning systems and moving people away from the area if an eruption seems imminent.
When a volcano erupts it can cause destruction in a variety of ways. These include the spewing of huge ash clouds into the air that can bury entire areas in hot ashes, tidal waves and tsunamis if the eruption happens at sea, as well as the dangers of rocks and debris being sent high into the air before falling down and crushing whatever they land upon. This is not to mention the dangers of lava flows pouring directly from breaches in the volcano itself that will bury and burn anything in their path.
Landslides
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Deaths: 3,710
China is the country with the most deaths caused by landslides this century with 3,710 people having lost their lives. The year with the heaviest death toll was 2010, when there were 2,137 reported deaths, with as many as 1,765 people losing their lives in the Gansu mudslide. This figure includes 294 missing people who were presumed dead as authorities ordered people to stop searching for bodies to prevent the spread of disease. The mudslide was reportedly five stories high and buried entire buildings while tearing apart blocks of flats and other large structures.
Methodology
- We wanted to find out which natural disasters are mostly deadly, and where in the world is most affected by each type of disaster. To do this, we used data from Our World In Data that gave us the death counts by year and country for a range of different natural disasters. We then totalled up this data to find the all-time figures for deaths by different natural disasters, as well as figures for the period 2000 to 2020.
Once we had this overview, we then split the data by country and calculated each nation’s total number of death for each disaster type since 2000. We chose this more recent timeframe as the number of deaths are more relevant to a modern-day scenario where rescue efforts could be aided with modern technology and strategies. It was also more relevant as recent natural disasters are more likely to have been influenced by climate change, which is now a feature of modern-day disaster planning.
We also used information from a variety of online sources to help to illustrate why each country which the most deaths for a disaster type experienced so many fatalities, highlighting specific events that occurred. These sources included the University of Oxford, the BBC, Hurricane Science, and Wikipedia, which we used for information on the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the 2018 California wildfires, the Black Saturday bush fires, and the Gansu mudslide.
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