Malawi — Natural Disaster Report
Africa · Live status: High (79 active events)
Current situation: 79 natural disaster events are currently monitored in Malawi, with a worst severity of Severe. Details, sources and timestamps are listed below.
Malawi is landlocked but highly exposed to tropical systems that cross Mozambique and reach the southern region. Cyclone Freddy in 2023, one of the longest-lived tropical cyclones on record, brought extreme rainfall that caused mudslides and flooding around Blantyre and killed hundreds. Cyclone Idai in 2019 caused similar destruction. The Shire River valley floods regularly, and drought in alternate years damages the maize harvest on which most households depend. Deforestation has increased runoff and landslide risk on the highlands.
Live map — Malawi
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
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 Malawi's earthquake record with another country.
By hazard in Malawi
Each of these has its own page: recent activity, the season it happens in, past events and what to do.
Risk profile
Cyclone-driven rainfall and flooding January-March. River flooding in the Shire valley during the rainy season. Drought during weak rainy seasons, affecting the maize harvest. Landslides in the highlands.
Official emergency authorities
Disaster displacement in Malawi
46,437 internal displacements
Largest single event: 23,235 from flood, beginning 22 December 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.
| Year | Displacements |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 46,437 |
| 2024 | 65,033 |
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 — Malawi
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 Malawi
| Source | Events here, last 12 months | What it will not tell you |
|---|---|---|
| NASA FIRMS | 2,359 | 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) | 5 | 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. |
| 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 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.
Frequently asked questions
What natural disasters are currently active in Malawi?
There are currently 79 monitored natural disaster events in Malawi. The overall risk status is High. See the live list on this page for details and sources.
What natural hazards does Malawi face?
Malawi is landlocked but highly exposed to tropical systems that cross Mozambique and reach the southern region. Cyclone Freddy in 2023, one of the longest-lived tropical cyclones on record, brought extreme rainfall that caused mudslides and flooding around Blantyre and killed hundreds.
When is the main natural disaster season in Malawi?
Cyclone-driven rainfall and flooding January-March. River flooding in the Shire valley during the rainy season. Drought during weak rainy seasons, affecting the maize harvest. Landslides in the highlands. Seasons shift from year to year; treat these as the usual pattern, not a forecast.
Which official agency issues disaster warnings in Malawi?
Official warnings for Malawi are issued by Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services. 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 Malawi 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.