Costa Rica — Natural Disaster Report
North America · Live status: Elevated (2 active events)
Current situation: 2 natural disaster events are currently monitored in Costa Rica, with a worst severity of Moderate. Details, sources and timestamps are listed below.
Costa Rica sits on the Middle America Trench and has frequent earthquakes, with the 2012 Nicoya earthquake a notable large event that caused relatively little damage thanks to strong building codes. Active volcanoes including Turrialba, Poás and Arenal are closely monitored and periodically disrupt aviation and agriculture with ash. Heavy rainfall on steep terrain causes landslides and flash floods, particularly during the September-October peak of the rainy season, and both coasts experience flooding. Costa Rica's comparatively strong institutions and preparedness are frequently cited in regional risk comparisons.
Live map — Costa Rica
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 Costa Rica's earthquake record with another country.
By hazard in Costa Rica
Each of these has its own page: recent activity, the season it happens in, past events and what to do.
Risk profile
Earthquakes year-round along the Pacific margin. Volcanic activity at Turrialba, Poás and Rincón de la Vieja. Landslides and flooding during the rainy season, May-November. Tropical storm influence from the Caribbean, September-November. Drought in Guanacaste during El Niño.
Official emergency authorities
Disaster displacement in Costa Rica
1,514 internal displacements
Largest single event: 621 from flood, beginning 1 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 |
|---|---|
| Flood | 1,483 |
| Mass Movement | 31 |
| Year | Displacements |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 1,514 |
| 2024 | 5,962 |
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.
What this site sees in Costa Rica
| Source | Events here, last 12 months | What it will not tell you |
|---|---|---|
| European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre | 47 | Global for earthquakes, with the best coverage in Europe and the Mediterranean. It publishes nothing about any other hazard. |
| GDACS (European Commission / United Nations) | 1 | 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. |
| US Geological Survey | 1 | Global for earthquakes above roughly M4.5, and denser where there are more seismometers. It publishes nothing about any other hazard. |
| NASA EONET | 1 | Global and curated rather than automatic, so it is slower than the raw feeds and carries far fewer events. |
| NASA FIRMS | none | 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. |
| WMO Alert Hub (national weather services) | none | 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. |
| 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.
Frequently asked questions
What natural disasters are currently active in Costa Rica?
There are currently 2 monitored natural disaster events in Costa Rica. The overall risk status is Elevated. See the live list on this page for details and sources.
What natural hazards does Costa Rica face?
Costa Rica sits on the Middle America Trench and has frequent earthquakes, with the 2012 Nicoya earthquake a notable large event that caused relatively little damage thanks to strong building codes. Active volcanoes including Turrialba, Poás and Arenal are closely monitored and periodically disrupt aviation and agriculture with ash.
When is the main natural disaster season in Costa Rica?
Earthquakes year-round along the Pacific margin. Volcanic activity at Turrialba, Poás and Rincón de la Vieja. Landslides and flooding during the rainy season, May-November. Tropical storm influence from the Caribbean, September-November. Drought in Guanacaste during El Niño. Seasons shift from year to year; treat these as the usual pattern, not a forecast.
Which official agency issues disaster warnings in Costa Rica?
Official warnings for Costa Rica are issued by OVSICORI — Volcanological and Seismological Observatory. 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.
Where does this disaster data for Costa Rica 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.