How the Turkish earthquake created a 100-mile rupture

A February 2023 earthquake devastated parts of Turkey and Syria destroying entire blocks, with more than 50,000 people killed. A scientific analysis revealed a fault line with a 100-mile-long rupture, where separate tectonic plates moved more than...

From 1610 BCE to 2025 CE, at least 250 of the over 3,000 confirmed tsunamis were deadly, and the 2004 Indonesia tsunami was the deadliest, with over 227,000 casualties.

View the 10 largest earthquakes ever recorded as of 2025, led by a 1960 magnitude 9.5 earthquake in Chile, which left about 2 million people unhoused.

The frequency of earthquakes and the distribution of their magnitudes have not changed significantly over long-term records, but technological improvements have enabled scientists to detect more of them as they occur.

Earthquakes of identical magnitudes are unlikely to cause equal damage because magnitude only measures energy released, and earthquake severity depends on environmental factors, such as local architecture and geological conditions.

Heat is the leading cause of death in natural disasters

Floods are a distant second, followed by hurricanes. That's according to data reported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Hurricanes may kill 300 times more people than officially reported

A recent study suggests that, since 1930, more than 3.5 million people have died due to hurricanes. This incorporates the long-term effects of storms on people's health and economic well-being, contributing to thousands of premature deaths each year.

Although earthquakes cause about 80% of tsunamis, almost all earthquakes lack sufficient energy to cause the sudden shift in the ocean floor needed to substantially displace enormous volumes of water.

More than 4,000 people died from cholera in 2023

This global health threat sickened more than half a million people in 2023 and killed 4,007 people. That's a 71% increase in deaths as compared to a year earlier. (Report only offered in PDF format.)

Visualizing the year in US tornadoes, 2024

Between January and November 2024, over 1,700 tornadoes were documented to have touched down in the US, a relatively high number (and similar to the numbers in 2004, 2008, and 2011). This map shows their location across the country to help capture the number.

Visualize the power and frequency of earthquakes across the moment magnitude scale, where a whole number increase corresponds to about 32 times more energy released.

Portugal's 1775 earthquake is considered Europe's first modern natural disaster.

The world's largest earthquake simulator is an 800-ton shake table facility in Miki, Japan, which was built to test the resilience of structures after the 1995 Kobe earthquake killed over 6,000 people.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people.

Explore an interactive map of volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis from 2150 BCE to the present.

The tallest tsunami in recorded history was 524 meters (1,720 feet) high—taller than the Empire State Building—and occurred in Lituya Bay, Alaska, in 1958 after an earthquake dislodged a rockface into the water.

Within an 18-hour period in 1974, 13 states were hit by 148 tornadoes

From April 3-4, a tornado outbreak killed over 300 people and caused $600M in damage ($3.8B in 2024 dollars). The event revealed deficiencies in various technologies, including crude radar imaging and slow typewriter-based communication systems, which quickly bottlenecked and became outdated as tornado watches became tornado warnings.

View the 10 biggest volcanic eruptions in recorded history

The Mount Tambora eruption in 1815 was the deadliest and released so much sun-blocking ash and gas that 1816 became known as “the year without summer.” The resulting global food shortages are estimated to have killed over 71,000 people.

View a map of the world's major earthquakes from 1956 to 2022, which can be used to identify tectonic plate boundaries.

Explore an interactive time-lapse of reported tsunami events since 1850, with identified cause, recorded observations, known deaths, and other information available for each.

The list of historic volcanic eruptions includes the 1883 blast from Krakatau, which killed more than 36,000 and was the first such event to be documented in real time, thanks to the telegraph.

Traumatic brain injury is a leading cause of brain death—and TBIs are trending up

Traumatic brain injury-related deaths have generally increased between 2000 and 2023, growing from roughly 49,000 to more than 68,000 in 2023. Firearm-related suicide is the most common cause of TBI-related deaths in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People also experience TBIs from falls, motor vehicle crashes, or assaults.

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

Tectonic earthquakes are caused by tectonic plates sliding past one another at fault zones, deforming rock through friction as energy builds like a stretched rubber band.

A modern-day version of the dinosaur-killing asteroid would kill billions of people

Such an asteroid would level Central America, trigger tsunamis, spark global fires, and plunge the planet into an artificial winter lasting over a decade. Bunkers would be insufficient for survival without years of provisions.

See the lists of the worst hurricanes in the US through 2024

Several metrics, including wind speed, pressure, damage costs, and casualties, may be used to define the most devastating hurricanes. This page provides the top 10 hurricanes across each of these sorting methods.

Storm surges, not winds, are the leading cause of hurricane-related fatalities

A storm surge is an abnormal rise in water levels generated by a storm that exceeds predicted tides. It is particularly dangerous in coastal regions, where it can generate extreme flooding well before the hurricane makes landfall.

Heat-related deaths may have climbed by more than 50% over 20 years

Between 2000 and 2009 one study suggests annual heat deaths averaged around 2,670, but between 2010 and 2020 that figure was likely more than 4,000. Researchers studied 54 million death records from the contiguous US and created mathematical models to arrive at these figures, noting that a combination of aging populations and climate change drove that increase.

If, not when: An earthquake is destined to destroy the Pacific Northwest.

When the Cascadia fault line ruptures, it could be North America’s worst natural disaster in recorded history. Read a deep dive into the history of the region and the potential impact of the eventual seismic boom.

View the past month of earthquakes worldwide with this digital globe, which displays data from the US Geological Survey.

Only 40% of city-destroying asteroids have been detected

Statistical modeling shows that while we have identified the majority of extinction-level asteroids, smaller asteroids that can cause significant damage remain elusive. Some asteroids, like the one that exploded over Chelyabinsk in 2013, can't be detected ahead of time since they come from the sun's direction.

About 66 million years ago, an asteroid larger than Mount Everest struck Earth off the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula and wiped out at least 75% of all species, including nearly all dinosaurs.

Techniques to earthquake-proof a building include the use of counterweights, such as a massive column or pendulum, to dampen the impact of seismic activity and isolating a building's structure from its base.

The volcano threatening the Greek island of Santorini

Santorini is a popular tourist destination, known for its stunning white architecture and dreamy blue waters. Yet underneath the charming island is a potentially dangerous underwater volcano. Recent earthquakes have triggered nearly half of residents to evacuate, signaling heightened uncertainty about when the volcano could erupt. Researchers studying activity in the region plan to produce detailed hazard maps for Greek authorities to improve local safety and emergency planning.

The total cost of weather and climate disasters from 1980 to 2024 is almost $3T

The NOAA’s Office of Coastal Management tracks the cost of damage, deaths, and other key statistics related to hurricanes and weather disasters. In 2024, there were 27 billion-dollar disasters, each averaging $1.2B more in damage than the prior five-year average.

While hurricane frequency has not increased over the past century, average hurricane intensity has, which scientists attribute to rising air and ocean temperatures.

A magnitude 25 earthquake would release enough energy to destroy the sun, while a particle of dust drifting onto a table would have a magnitude of about -15.

Mapping projected food inflation across the world in 2026

Iran tops the list of hardest-hit countries with a projected 56% inflation on food prices in 2026, followed by Argentina (33%) and Turkey (25%). In the opposite direction is Niger, whose food inflation is expected to drop 18% as a result of strong harvests and financial stabilization. The global average of food inflation is expected to be 3%.