Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers about our data, alerts and how to use the site.
Where does your disaster data come from?
All live data comes from official public sources: USGS (earthquakes), GDACS — a joint European Commission and United Nations system (multi-hazard alerts), NASA EONET and FIRMS (natural events and fire detections), NOAA/NWS (US weather alerts), EMSC (European earthquakes) and ReliefWeb/UN OCHA (disaster reports). Every event links to its original source.
How often is the data updated?
Our servers sync with each source every 10 minutes, and the site refreshes live views every 1–2 minutes. Each event shows its own last-updated timestamp. Underlying agency feeds update from every minute (earthquakes) to several times daily (satellite fire data).
Is this an official warning service?
No. We aggregate and display information published by official agencies but do not issue our own warnings. During any emergency, always follow your national meteorological service, civil-defence authority and local emergency services first.
What do the severity levels mean?
We use four levels — Minor, Moderate, Severe and Extreme — mapped from each source: earthquake magnitude thresholds for USGS/EMSC, the Green/Orange/Red alert colours for GDACS, and the official severity field for US NWS alerts. The methodology page explains the exact mapping.
Why do I see two entries — or none — for an event I heard about?
Different agencies report the same physical event with slightly different locations and times; our deduplication merges most of these, but edge cases can appear briefly. Conversely, small local events below agency reporting thresholds may not appear at all.
How do disaster alerts work?
You can subscribe to email alerts (choose countries, disaster types, minimum severity and frequency) with double opt-in confirmation, or enable browser push notifications. You can change preferences or delete your data anytime from the manage link in every email.
Does the historical database cover every disaster in history?
No database can. Reliable global records only become comprehensive in the 20th century. We include documented major disasters with cited sources, and clearly note uncertainty where casualty estimates differ between sources.
Can I use your data or link to your pages?
You are welcome to link to any page. The underlying live data belongs to the originating agencies (most are public domain or openly licensed) — please attribute the original source, listed on every event page and on our data sources page.