China — Natural Disaster Report
Asia · Live status: Critical (255 active events)
Current situation: 255 natural disaster events are currently monitored in China, with a worst severity of Extreme. Details, sources and timestamps are listed below.
China's scale means it experiences nearly every natural hazard, often simultaneously in different regions. It holds the record for the deadliest disasters in documented history: the 1931 Yangtze and Huai river floods and the 1556 Shaanxi earthquake, which struck a region where millions lived in loess cave dwellings that collapsed. The 1976 Tangshan earthquake killed at least 242,000 people, and the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan killed nearly 88,000 and triggered enormous landslides. The eastern seaboard is exposed to Northwest Pacific typhoons, the Yellow and Yangtze basins to major river flooding, and the north and west to severe drought and dust storms. Massive engineering responses — the Three Gorges Dam, the South-North Water Transfer — have altered flood and drought dynamics but not removed the underlying exposure.
Live map — China
Loading live data… · Marker positions are approximate; severity is labelled in each popup. Sources: USGS, GDACS, NASA EONET, NOAA/NWS, EMSC.
Active alerts & recent events
Latest earthquakes
Near a particular city? Earthquake history near a place · disasters reported near a place · compare China's earthquake record with another country.
By hazard in China
Each of these has its own page: recent activity, the season it happens in, past events and what to do.
- Cold Waves in China
- Earthquakes in China
- Extreme Weather in China
- Floods in China
- Heatwaves in China
- Heavy Rains in China
- Landslides in China
- Severe Storms in China
- Wildfires in China
Risk profile
River flooding June-August in the Yangtze and Yellow basins. Typhoons along the southeast coast July-September. Earthquakes year-round, concentrated in Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu and Xinjiang. Drought and dust storms in the north, spring. Severe winter conditions in the northeast.
Official emergency authorities
Disaster displacement in China
3.5 million internal displacements
Largest single event: 1.0 million from storm, beginning 16 September 2025.
A displacement is a movement, not a person: somebody forced from home more than once in a year is counted more than once. These are movements caused by disasters only — displacement caused by conflict is counted separately and is not included here.
| Hazard | Displacements in 2025 |
|---|---|
| Storm | 2,743,317 |
| Flood | 598,554 |
| Earthquake | 156,713 |
| Mass Movement | 2,849 |
| Wildfire | 266 |
| Year | Displacements |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 3,501,699 |
| 2024 | 3,926,635 |
Source: Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), Global Internal Displacement Database. IDMC publishes annually, so the latest year here is the latest they have finalised — not the current one.
River flood forecast — China
No chance of exceeding even its 2-year flood flow in this forecast.
GloFAS alert level: Inactive · Peak expected: in 7 days (on 2026-10-26) · forecast of 19 Oct 2026
No chance of exceeding even its 2-year flood flow in this forecast.
GloFAS alert level: Inactive · Peak expected: in 3 days (on 2026-10-22) · forecast of 19 Oct 2026
No chance of exceeding even its 2-year flood flow in this forecast.
GloFAS alert level: Inactive · Peak expected: as currently ongoing · forecast of 19 Oct 2026
GloFAS forecasts are computer model output, published for information only. They are not a flood warning: only national and regional authorities issue flood warnings for their own area. A reporting point is a place on the model's river network, which may sit a few kilometres from the town it is named after. All 259 rivers →
What this site sees in China
| Source | Events here, last 12 months | What it will not tell you |
|---|---|---|
| WMO Alert Hub (national weather services) | 10,019 | Each warning comes from one country own alerting authority, so the scale is that agency scale and is not comparable between countries. Many agencies publish no coordinates, and those warnings are placed at the centre of the country rather than where the weather is - the area name is the real answer. |
| NASA FIRMS | 65 | Global, but it sees only what the satellite saw on its pass, and thick cloud hides fire. A quiet day here is not evidence that nothing burned. |
| European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre | 47 | Global for earthquakes, with the best coverage in Europe and the Mediterranean. It publishes nothing about any other hazard. |
| US Geological Survey | 9 | Global for earthquakes above roughly M4.5, and denser where there are more seismometers. It publishes nothing about any other hazard. |
| GDACS (European Commission / United Nations) | 4 | Global, but deliberately selective: it alerts on disasters likely to need INTERNATIONAL response. Serious local flooding that a national agency handles alone will not appear here. |
| NASA EONET | none | Global and curated rather than automatic, so it is slower than the raw feeds and carries far fewer events. |
| MeteoAlarm (EUMETNET) | none | Europe only. It publishes no coordinates at all, so every warning here is placed at the centre of its country and the area name is the only reliable indication of where it applies. |
| NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers | none | These two centres warn for the US and Canadian coasts and for the Pacific and Caribbean basins. The Indian Ocean and Mediterranean have their own warning centres, which are not read here. Their routine information statements - the ones that say there is NO tsunami danger - are deliberately not imported, so an empty tsunami list means no threat was issued, not that nothing was checked. |
| NOAA National Hurricane Center | none | The Atlantic and the eastern and central Pacific only. No typhoon in the western Pacific and no cyclone in the Indian Ocean or the southern hemisphere appears here; those come from GDACS and from national services. |
| ReliefWeb (UN OCHA) | none | Global, but it reports on humanitarian RESPONSE. It arrives days after an event rather than during it, and never functions as a warning. |
Not applicable here: US National Weather Service — Covers the United States only. It publishes nothing about any other country, so its absence from a country page is not an outage. ; USGS Volcano Hazards Program — United States volcanoes only - Alaska, Hawaii, the Cascades, Yellowstone, California and the Northern Mariana Islands. It says nothing about Indonesia, Iceland, Italy or anywhere else, so its silence about a foreign eruption is not a judgement about that eruption.
Major historical disasters — China
| Event | Type | Date | Fatalities |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 Sichuan (Wenchuan) Earthquake | Earthquake | May 12, 2008 | 87,587 |
| 1976 Tangshan Earthquake | Earthquake | Jul 28, 1976 | 242,000 |
| 1931 China Floods | Flood | Jul 1, 1931 | 400,000 |
| 1887 Yellow River Flood | Flood | Sep 28, 1887 | 900,000 |
| 1556 Shaanxi Earthquake | Earthquake | Jan 23, 1556 | 830,000 |
Related articles
Frequently asked questions
What natural disasters are currently active in China?
There are currently 255 monitored natural disaster events in China. The overall risk status is Critical. See the live list on this page for details and sources.
What natural hazards does China face?
China's scale means it experiences nearly every natural hazard, often simultaneously in different regions. It holds the record for the deadliest disasters in documented history: the 1931 Yangtze and Huai river floods and the 1556 Shaanxi earthquake, which struck a region where millions lived in loess cave dwellings that collapsed.
When is the main natural disaster season in China?
River flooding June-August in the Yangtze and Yellow basins. Typhoons along the southeast coast July-September. Earthquakes year-round, concentrated in Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu and Xinjiang. Drought and dust storms in the north, spring. Severe winter conditions in the northeast. Seasons shift from year to year; treat these as the usual pattern, not a forecast.
Which official agency issues disaster warnings in China?
Official warnings for China are issued by China Meteorological Administration. The link is on this page. This site aggregates and reports; it does not issue warnings, and in an emergency the national agency is the authority.
What is the deadliest recorded natural disaster in China?
Of the events documented on this site, the deadliest in China is the 1887 Yellow River Flood (1887), with around 900,000 deaths. Estimates range from 900,000 to 2 million including famine deaths. This is drawn from documented records held here and is not a complete historical archive.
Where does this disaster data for China come from?
Data is aggregated from official sources including USGS, GDACS (EC/UN), NASA EONET, ReliefWeb and national agencies. Every event links to its original source, and update times are shown on each record.
Data sources: USGS, GDACS (EC/UN), NASA EONET, NOAA/NWS, EMSC, ReliefWeb (UN OCHA). See data sources & attribution and methodology. This page does not replace official emergency guidance.