Peru — Natural Disaster Report
South America · Live status: Elevated (3 active events)
Current situation: 3 natural disaster events are currently monitored in Peru, with a worst severity of Moderate. Details, sources and timestamps are listed below.
Peru sits on the same subduction zone as Chile and faces major earthquake and tsunami hazard along its coast. The 1970 Ancash earthquake triggered a debris avalanche from Mount Huascarán that buried the town of Yungay and killed tens of thousands, one of the deadliest single landslide events in history. Peru also experiences the strongest effects of El Niño, which reverses the normal cold Humboldt Current and brings torrential rain and flooding to the usually arid northern coast, as in 1997-98 and 2017. Andean regions face glacial lake outburst floods, landslides and severe frost, while the Amazon lowlands flood seasonally.
Live map — Peru
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 Peru's earthquake record with another country.
By hazard in Peru
Each of these has its own page: recent activity, the season it happens in, past events and what to do.
Risk profile
Earthquakes and tsunamis year-round on the coast. El Niño flooding on the northern coast, December-April in event years. Landslides and huaicos during the rainy season, December-March. Glacial lake outburst floods in the Cordillera Blanca. Andean frost and cold waves, June-August.
Official emergency authorities
River flood forecast — Peru
No chance of exceeding even its 2-year flood flow in this forecast.
GloFAS alert level: Inactive · Peak expected: in 8-10 days (on 2026-10-27) · 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 11-14 days (on 2026-11-02) · 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 Peru
| Source | Events here, last 12 months | What it will not tell you |
|---|---|---|
| NASA FIRMS | 529 | 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 | 17 | Global for earthquakes, with the best coverage in Europe and the Mediterranean. It publishes nothing about any other hazard. |
| US Geological Survey | 11 | 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) | 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. |
| NASA EONET | 1 | Global and curated rather than automatic, so it is slower than the raw feeds and carries far fewer events. |
| ReliefWeb (UN OCHA) | 1 | Global, but it reports on humanitarian RESPONSE. It arrives days after an event rather than during it, and never functions as a warning. |
| 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. |
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 — Peru
| Event | Type | Date | Fatalities |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 Ancash Earthquake and Yungay Landslide | Earthquake | May 31, 1970 | 67,000 |
Frequently asked questions
What natural disasters are currently active in Peru?
There are currently 3 monitored natural disaster events in Peru. The overall risk status is Elevated. See the live list on this page for details and sources.
What natural hazards does Peru face?
Peru sits on the same subduction zone as Chile and faces major earthquake and tsunami hazard along its coast. The 1970 Ancash earthquake triggered a debris avalanche from Mount Huascarán that buried the town of Yungay and killed tens of thousands, one of the deadliest single landslide events in history.
When is the main natural disaster season in Peru?
Earthquakes and tsunamis year-round on the coast. El Niño flooding on the northern coast, December-April in event years. Landslides and huaicos during the rainy season, December-March. Glacial lake outburst floods in the Cordillera Blanca. Andean frost and cold waves, June-August. Seasons shift from year to year; treat these as the usual pattern, not a forecast.
Which official agency issues disaster warnings in Peru?
Official warnings for Peru are issued by INDECI — National Institute of Civil Defence and SENAMHI Peru. 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 Peru?
Of the events documented on this site, the deadliest in Peru is the 1970 Ancash Earthquake and Yungay Landslide (1970), with around 67,000 deaths. Combined earthquake and avalanche deaths; estimates 66,000–70,000. This is drawn from documented records held here and is not a complete historical archive.
Where does this disaster data for Peru 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.