Kiribati — Natural Disaster Report
Oceania · Live status: Normal (0 active events)
Current situation: No active natural disaster events are currently tracked for Kiribati by our monitored sources. This does not guarantee absence of hazards — always follow local authorities.
Kiribati spans an enormous area of the Pacific but consists almost entirely of low coral atolls rarely more than three metres above sea level, making sea-level rise, king tides and coastal erosion existential rather than seasonal hazards. Freshwater comes from thin groundwater lenses that saline intrusion is steadily degrading. South Tarawa is extremely densely populated with almost no high ground. Kiribati lies mostly outside the cyclone belt, but distant storms generate damaging swell, and El Niño brings severe drought.
Live map — Kiribati
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
No events match these filters right now. Data syncs run continuously — check the live map or widen the filters.
Latest earthquakes
No events match these filters right now. Data syncs run continuously — check the live map or widen the filters.
Near a particular city? Earthquake history near a place · disasters reported near a place · compare Kiribati's earthquake record with another country.
Risk profile
King tide and sea-level flooding, worsening. Coastal erosion year-round. Drought during La Niña years, threatening the freshwater lens. Distant-source swell and storm surge. Tsunami risk from Pacific-wide events.
Official emergency authorities
What this site sees in Kiribati
| Source | Events here, last 12 months | What it will not tell you |
|---|---|---|
| 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. |
| US Geological Survey | none | Global for earthquakes above roughly M4.5, and denser where there are more seismometers. It publishes nothing about any other hazard. |
| European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre | none | Global for earthquakes, with the best coverage in Europe and the Mediterranean. It publishes nothing about any other hazard. |
| 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. |
| 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 Kiribati?
No active natural disaster events are currently being tracked for Kiribati by our monitored data sources. Conditions can change quickly — check official local authorities for definitive guidance.
What natural hazards does Kiribati face?
Kiribati spans an enormous area of the Pacific but consists almost entirely of low coral atolls rarely more than three metres above sea level, making sea-level rise, king tides and coastal erosion existential rather than seasonal hazards. Freshwater comes from thin groundwater lenses that saline intrusion is steadily degrading.
When is the main natural disaster season in Kiribati?
King tide and sea-level flooding, worsening. Coastal erosion year-round. Drought during La Niña years, threatening the freshwater lens. Distant-source swell and storm surge. Tsunami risk from Pacific-wide events. Seasons shift from year to year; treat these as the usual pattern, not a forecast.
Which official agency issues disaster warnings in Kiribati?
Official warnings for Kiribati are issued by Kiribati Meteorological Service. 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 Kiribati 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.