Ethiopia — Natural Disaster Report
Africa · Live status: Normal (0 active events)
Current situation: No active natural disaster events are currently tracked for Ethiopia by our monitored sources. This does not guarantee absence of hazards — always follow local authorities.
Ethiopia's hazard profile is dominated by drought and by its position on the East African Rift, the continental divergence zone that is slowly splitting Africa apart. Recurrent drought in the eastern and southern lowlands, driven by failed Belg and Kiremt rains and amplified in La Niña years, has repeatedly caused severe food insecurity, most catastrophically in the mid-1980s. The same regions then face flash flooding when rains return to hardened ground. The Rift Valley brings earthquakes and volcanic activity, including the Erta Ale lava lake in the Danakil Depression, one of the hottest inhabited places on Earth. Highland areas face landslides during heavy rain, and desert locust outbreaks have devastated crops across the Horn.
Live map — Ethiopia
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 Ethiopia's earthquake record with another country.
By hazard in Ethiopia
Each of these has its own page: recent activity, the season it happens in, past events and what to do.
Risk profile
Drought during failed Belg (Feb-May) or Kiremt (Jun-Sep) rains. Flash flooding when rains resume. Landslides in the highlands during the Kiremt season. Earthquakes and volcanic activity along the Rift Valley. Extreme heat in the Danakil Depression.
Official emergency authorities
Disaster displacement in Ethiopia
243,648 internal displacements
Largest single event: 57,810 from earthquake, beginning 1 January 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 | 119,253 |
| Earthquake | 79,737 |
| Storm | 38,537 |
| Mass Movement | 6,121 |
| Year | Displacements |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 243,648 |
| 2024 | 227,466 |
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 — Ethiopia
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
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
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 Ethiopia
| Source | Events here, last 12 months | What it will not tell you |
|---|---|---|
| NASA FIRMS | 16 | 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 | 3 | Global for earthquakes, with the best coverage in Europe and the Mediterranean. It publishes nothing about any other hazard. |
| 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. |
| GDACS (European Commission / United Nations) | none | 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. |
| 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 Ethiopia?
No active natural disaster events are currently being tracked for Ethiopia by our monitored data sources. Conditions can change quickly — check official local authorities for definitive guidance.
What natural hazards does Ethiopia face?
Ethiopia's hazard profile is dominated by drought and by its position on the East African Rift, the continental divergence zone that is slowly splitting Africa apart. Recurrent drought in the eastern and southern lowlands, driven by failed Belg and Kiremt rains and amplified in La Niña years, has repeatedly caused severe food insecurity, most catastrophically in the mid-1980s.
When is the main natural disaster season in Ethiopia?
Drought during failed Belg (Feb-May) or Kiremt (Jun-Sep) rains. Flash flooding when rains resume. Landslides in the highlands during the Kiremt season. Earthquakes and volcanic activity along the Rift Valley. Extreme heat in the Danakil Depression. Seasons shift from year to year; treat these as the usual pattern, not a forecast.
Which official agency issues disaster warnings in Ethiopia?
Official warnings for Ethiopia are issued by Ethiopian Meteorological Institute. 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 Ethiopia 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.