Italy — Natural Disaster Report
Europe · Live status: Critical (150 active events)
Current situation: 150 natural disaster events are currently monitored in Italy, with a worst severity of Extreme. Details, sources and timestamps are listed below.
Italy is the most disaster-exposed country in western Europe. It sits where the African and Eurasian plates converge, producing frequent destructive earthquakes along the Apennine spine — L'Aquila in 2009, Amatrice in 2016 — and the 1908 Messina earthquake and tsunami killed roughly 80,000 people, among the deadliest in European history. Italy also hosts Europe's most dangerous volcanoes: Vesuvius, which destroyed Pompeii and now sits beside a metropolitan area of millions; Etna, in near-continuous eruption; and the Campi Flegrei caldera west of Naples, whose ongoing ground deformation is closely monitored. Landslides and flash floods are frequent on steep, deforested terrain, and Mediterranean heatwaves and wildfires have intensified sharply.
Live map — Italy
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 Italy's earthquake record with another country.
By hazard in Italy
Each of these has its own page: recent activity, the season it happens in, past events and what to do.
- Cold Waves in Italy
- Earthquakes in Italy
- Extreme Weather in Italy
- Heatwaves in Italy
- Heavy Rains in Italy
- Severe Storms in Italy
- Wildfires in Italy
Risk profile
Earthquakes year-round along the Apennines and in Sicily. Volcanic activity at Etna, Stromboli, Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei under continuous monitoring. Flash floods and landslides September-November. Heatwaves and wildfires June-September. Alpine avalanches December-April.
Official emergency authorities
Disaster displacement in Italy
1,691 internal displacements
Largest single event: 403 from flood, beginning 16 November 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 | 784 |
| Mass Movement | 495 |
| Wildfire | 310 |
| Earthquake | 83 |
| Storm | 19 |
| Year | Displacements |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 1,691 |
| 2024 | 9,406 |
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 — Italy
A 1% chance of exceeding its 5-year flood flow; 1% for the 2-year.
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: in 5 days (on 2026-10-24) · 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 Italy
| Source | Events here, last 12 months | What it will not tell you |
|---|---|---|
| MeteoAlarm (EUMETNET) | 545 | 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. |
| WMO Alert Hub (national weather services) | 418 | 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 | 10 | 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 | 4 | Global for earthquakes, with the best coverage in Europe and the Mediterranean. It publishes nothing about any other hazard. |
| US Geological Survey | 3 | 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) | 2 | 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. |
| 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 — Italy
| Event | Type | Date | Fatalities |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1908 Messina Earthquake and Tsunami | Earthquake | Dec 28, 1908 | 80,000 |
Frequently asked questions
What natural disasters are currently active in Italy?
There are currently 150 monitored natural disaster events in Italy. The overall risk status is Critical. See the live list on this page for details and sources.
What natural hazards does Italy face?
Italy is the most disaster-exposed country in western Europe. It sits where the African and Eurasian plates converge, producing frequent destructive earthquakes along the Apennine spine — L'Aquila in 2009, Amatrice in 2016 — and the 1908 Messina earthquake and tsunami killed roughly 80,000 people, among the deadliest in European history.
When is the main natural disaster season in Italy?
Earthquakes year-round along the Apennines and in Sicily. Volcanic activity at Etna, Stromboli, Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei under continuous monitoring. Flash floods and landslides September-November. Heatwaves and wildfires June-September. Alpine avalanches December-April. Seasons shift from year to year; treat these as the usual pattern, not a forecast.
Which official agency issues disaster warnings in Italy?
Official warnings for Italy are issued by Protezione Civile and INGV — National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology. Links to each are 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 Italy?
Of the events documented on this site, the deadliest in Italy is the 1908 Messina Earthquake and Tsunami (1908), with around 80,000 deaths. Estimates range 75,000–82,000; some sources cite up to 200,000. This is drawn from documented records held here and is not a complete historical archive.
Where does this disaster data for Italy 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.