Natural disasters in 2026
Counted from the public catalogues of the agencies that actually measure these things, for the whole of 2026 up to 25 October 2026. Last refreshed 3 hr ago.
Earthquakes
From the USGS global catalogue. Magnitude is what decides whether an earthquake is a disaster or a statistic, so the count is given at each threshold rather than as one figure.
Wildfires, floods, storms and volcanoes
From NASA EONET, which tracks natural events large enough to be seen from orbit. Small local fires and floods are not in these numbers.
| Category | Events in 2026 |
|---|---|
| Wildfires | 8,196 |
| Floods | 461 |
| Severe Storms | 82 |
| Sea and Lake Ice | 29 |
| Volcanoes | 17 |
| Total | 8,785 |
Happening right now
What this site is tracking as active at this moment, across every feed it monitors. This is a different measurement from the yearly totals above — it is our own live view, not a year's archive.
What these numbers do and do not mean
There is no single number. "Natural disaster" has no agreed definition, and every count on this page carries a detection threshold. A magnitude 2.5 earthquake nobody felt and a magnitude 7.5 that levelled a town are both in the USGS catalogue. That is why each figure here is labelled with what it counts instead of being added into one headline.
These are events, not casualties. A count of earthquakes says nothing about how many people were harmed — that depends on depth, time of day, and how buildings were made. Death tolls take months to settle and are not published here as running totals, because a wrong casualty figure is a worse error than none.
The yearly figures are not our own coverage. This site's own live monitoring began on 21 July 2026. The totals above are queried from the agencies' full-year archives, so they cover January onwards regardless of when we started watching.
Sources and update cadence for every feed are listed on the data sources page, and the collection method on methodology.
Common questions
How many earthquakes have there been in 2026?
The USGS global catalogue records 6,430 earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or greater in 2026 so far, of which 119 were magnitude 6.0 or greater and 15 were magnitude 7.0 or greater. Smaller earthquakes are far more numerous: 23,834 of magnitude 2.5 or above have been recorded, most of them too small to be felt.
Is there a single number for how many natural disasters happened in 2026?
No, and any site that gives you one is choosing a threshold without telling you. A magnitude 2.5 earthquake that nobody felt and a magnitude 7.5 that destroyed a city are both "earthquakes". The figures on this page are counts from named monitoring systems, each with its own detection threshold, and each is labelled with the threshold it uses.
How many wildfires and floods have there been in 2026?
NASA's Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker recorded 8,785 natural events in 2026 so far, including 8,196 wildfires, 461 floods, 82 severe storms. These are events large enough to be visible from orbit, so small local fires and floods are not included.
Where do these numbers come from?
Earthquake counts come from the United States Geological Survey catalogue. Wildfire, flood, storm and volcano counts come from NASA's EONET. Both are public, free and authoritative, and both are queried for the whole year rather than only for the period this site has been running. The page refreshes automatically several times a day.