There are other biases, too. However, after controlling for disaster type, along with other factors such as the number killed and the timing of the news, there is no significant difference between coverage of African and Asian disasters. Instead, a huge difference emerges between coverage of Africa, Asia, and the Pacific on the one hand, and Europe and South and Central America, on the other.
The two visualizations show the extent of this bias. One of the major successes over the past century has been the dramatic decline in global deaths from natural disasters — this is despite the fact that the human population has increased rapidly over this period.
Behind this improvement has been the improvement in living standards; access to and development of resilient infrastructure; and effective response systems. These factors have been driven by an increase in incomes across the world. What remains true today is that populations in low-income countries — those where a large percentage of the population still live in extreme poverty , or score low on the Human Development Index — are more vulnerable to the effects of natural disasters.
We see this effect in the visualization shown. This chart shows the death rates from natural disasters — the number of deaths per , population — of countries grouped by their socio-demographic index SDI.
What we see is that the large spikes in death rates occur almost exclusively for countries with a low or low-middle SDI.
Highly developed countries are much more resilient to disaster events and therefore have a consistently low death rate from natural disasters. Note that this does not mean low-income countries have high death tolls from disasters year-to-year: the data here shows that in most years they also have very low death rates.
But when low-frequency, high-impact events do occur they are particularly vulnerable to its effects. Overall development, poverty alleviation, and knowledge-sharing of how to increase resilience to natural disasters will therefore be key to reducing the toll of disasters in the decades to come. There are multiple terms used to describe extreme weather events: hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones and tornadoes.
What is the difference between these terms, and how are they defined? The terms hurricane , cyclone and typhoon all refer to the same thing; they can be used interchangeably. A tropical cyclone is a weather event which originates over tropical or subtropical waters and results in a rotating, organized system of clouds and thunderstorms.
Its circulation patterns should be closed and low-level. The choice of terminology is location-specific and depends on where the storm originates. The term hurricane is used to describe a tropical cyclone which originates in the North Atlantic, central North Pacific, and eastern North Pacific. When it originates in the Northwest Pacific, we call it typhoon. In the South Pacific and Indian Ocean the general term tropical cyclone is used.
In other words, the only difference between a hurricane and typhoon is where it occurs. The characteristics of a hurricane are described in detail at the NASA website. A tropical disturbance arises over warm ocean waters. It can grow into a tropical depression which is an area of rotating thunderstorms with winds up to 62 kilometres 38 miles per hour. Whilst hurricanes and tornadoes have a characteristic circulatory wind patterns, they are very different weather systems.
The main difference between the systems is scale tornadoes are small-scale circulatory systems; hurricanes are large-scale. These differences are highlighted in the table below:. The VEI is derived based on the erupted mass or deposit of an eruption. Historic eruptions that were definitely explosive, but carry no other descriptive information are assigned a default VEI of 2. A key issue of data quality is the consistency of even reporting over time.
For long-term trends in natural disaster events we know that reporting and recording of events today is much more advanced and complete than in the past. This can lead to significant underreporting or uncertainty of events in the distant past. In the chart here we show data on the number of reported natural disasters over time.
This change over time can be influenced by a number of factors, namely the increased coverage of reporting over time. The increase over time is therefore not directly reflective of the actual trend in disaster events. This same data is shown here as the number of reported disaster events by type.
Again, the incompleteness of historical data can lead to significant underreporting in the past. Wikipedia has several lists of disasters, and an overview of these lists can be found at List of Disasters. Summary Natural disasters kill on average 60, people per year, globally. Globally, disasters were responsible for 0.
This was highly variable, ranging from 0. Deaths from natural disasters have seen a large decline over the past century — from, in some years, millions of deaths per year to an average of 60, over the past decade. Historically, droughts and floods were the most fatal disaster events. Deaths from these events are now very low — the most deadly events today tend to be earthquakes. Disasters affect those in poverty most heavily: high death tolls tend to be centered in low-to-middle income countries without the infrastructure to protect and respond to events.
How many deaths does it take for a disaster to receive news coverage? Natural disasters kill on average 60, people per year and are responsible for 0.
Click to open interactive version. What share of deaths are from natural disasters? Number of deaths from natural disasters. Average annual global deaths from natural disasters by decade, 2. Injuries and displacement from disasters. Natural disasters by type. Earthquake events. Deaths from earthquakes. A mile wide area destroyed. Such catastrophic losses are attributed to loess cave settlements, which collapsed as a result. Some sources suggest a lower figure of , In the latter case, this event would fall to 7th place in the above rankings.
Apamea was also destroyed and Beirut suffered severe damage. A local tsunami was triggered causing damage to the coast of Lebanon. The earthquake caused severe damage to many buildings. However, severe damage was also caused by fires in the aftermath combined with strong wind.
Tangshan therefore large comprised of unreinforced brick buildings which resulted in a large death toll. Much less is documented on the specific details of this event. Victims across 14 countries in the regions with Indonesia being the hardest-hit, followed by Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.
There was no tsunami warning system in place. In some cities almost all buildings collapsed, or were buried by landslides. It was reported than additional deaths occurred due to cold exposure: fear from aftershocks meant survivors tried to rely only on temporary shelters which were unsuitable for the harsh winter.
With its city defences ruined, Dvin was taken over and turned into a military base by Muhammad ibn Abi'l-Saj, the Sajid emir of Adharbayjan. Caused a tsunami with height up to 12m. Large fires broke out; combined with a large tornado, these spread quickly. Number of significant volcanic eruptions.
Deaths from volcanic eruptions. Long-term trends in deaths from US weather events. Intensity of North Atlantic Hurricanes. Precipitation anomalies. Precipitation extremes. Heatwaves and high temperatures. Cold temperatures. US Wildfires. How are the frequency and extent of wildfires in the United States changing over time? Over the past years we notice three general trends in the charts below although there is significant year-to-year variability : on average, the annual number of wildfires has not changed much; on average, the total acres burned has increased from the s and s into the 21st century; the combination of these two factors suggest that the average acres burned per wildfire has increased.
However, the NIFC explicitly state: Prior to , sources of these figures are not known, or cannot be confirmed, and were not derived from the current situation reporting process.
Long-term trends in US lightning strikes. Lightning strikes across the world. Economic costs. Not all deaths are equal: How many deaths make a natural disaster newsworthy? How many deaths does it take for a natural disaster to be newsworthy?
The type of disaster matters. And the location of the disaster matters too. Link between poverty and deaths from natural disasters. For further information, please follow official channels, the National Service of Risk and Emergency Management and the National Geophysical Institute. There was a major earthquake 7.
Seismologists assess the risk of earthquakes in the province of Esmeraldas on the north-western coast as particularly high because of its proximity to the convergence of the Nazca and South American plates.
The National Service for Risk and Emergency Management and the National Geophysical Institute are the only official channels responsible for providing information and instructions.
There is a high risk of tsunamis along the coast and in the Galapagos Archipelago. You should familiarise yourself with evacuation routes maps and follow the advice of the local authorities.
There are numerous active and potentially active volcanoes in the highlands of Ecuador and the Galapagos Archipelago, some of which are currently in a state of eruption. Ash fall from active volcanoes can disrupt national and international flights across the country and can also pose health hazards, especially for travellers with existing respiratory problems.
These are flows of water, mud, lava and debris which can be extremely destructive. Ecuadorean law stipulates that anyone wishing to climb a glaciated mountain must be accompanied by an officially accredited guide.
You should review your itinerary taking into account information from the Ecuadorean National Geophysical Institute and the National Service of Risk and Emergency Management. There are currently alerts and access restrictions in place for the Reventador amber and Sangay yellow active volcanoes.
Airports can close at short notice due to ash fall so please check with your airline and the airport website before travelling to the airport. The Sangay volcano, located in the Amazon region Morona Santiago province , has experienced several eruption cycles recently, some with significant ash affecting the provinces of Chimborazo, Bolivar, Los Rios and Guayas but with less intensity in Manabi and Santa Elena provinces. The yellow alerts for Morona Santiago and Chimborazo provinces remain in place issued on 5 December and 16 June respectively.
You should follow instructions issued by the local authorities, including, for example, wearing masks and goggles, and keeping away from the volcano and the Upano river. On 4 October , the summit of Cotopaxi volcano was re-opened after more than two years of restrictions following the August eruption. You should monitor official sources of information closely before considering a climb. Rainy season usually runs from December to May.
The risk of landslides is higher at times of heavy rainfall. We can prevent hazards from leading to disasters by helping communities to be prepared , reduce their risks and become more resilient. These efforts are becoming more and more urgent in the context of the climate crisis. The impacts of global warming are already killing people and devastating lives and livelihoods every year, and they will only get worse without immediate and determined action.
Read more in our latest World Disasters Report. What is a disaster? What are hazards? Natural hazards are naturally occurring physical phenomena. While hazards may be natural and inevitable, disasters are not.
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