Natural disasters on 21 August 2026
On 21 August 2026, this site recorded 1,681 natural disaster events worldwide, of which 730 were severe storm events. That is 25% above the daily average for the surrounding fortnight (1,345). The largest earthquake was magnitude 5.7 in Indonesia.
The most serious events
Ranked by severity, then by magnitude — not by what was published last.
| Event | Type | Severity | Where | Time (UTC) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tornado Warning — Chatham, NC; Moore, NC; Randolph, NC | Tornado | Extreme | United States | 22:26 |
| Tornado Warning — Chatham, NC; Montgomery, NC; Moore, NC; Randolph, NC | Tornado | Extreme | United States | 22:03 |
| Active Fire Zone — 772 satellite detections (24h) | Wildfire | Extreme | — | 21:58 |
| Tornado Warning — Dane, WI | Tornado | Extreme | United States | 21:18 |
| Tornado Warning — New Hanover, NC; Pender, NC | Tornado | Extreme | United States | 20:52 |
| Active Fire Zone — 851 satellite detections (24h) | Wildfire | Extreme | — | 20:36 |
| Tornado Warning — New Hanover, NC; Pender, NC | Tornado | Extreme | United States | 20:35 |
| Active Fire Zone — 795 satellite detections (24h) | Wildfire | Extreme | Russia | 20:34 |
| Active Fire Zone — 955 satellite detections (24h) | Wildfire | Extreme | Russia | 20:34 |
| Active Fire Zone — 531 satellite detections (24h) | Wildfire | Extreme | — | 20:34 |
| Active Fire Zone — 1,016 satellite detections (24h) | Wildfire | Extreme | Russia | 20:34 |
| Active Fire Zone — 837 satellite detections (24h) | Wildfire | Extreme | — | 20:34 |
By hazard type
| Hazard | Events |
|---|---|
| Severe Storm | 730 |
| Wildfire | 705 |
| Flood | 141 |
| Earthquake | 94 |
| Tornado | 11 |
Countries with the most recorded events
| Country | Events |
|---|---|
| United States | 887 |
| Angola | 77 |
| Zambia | 67 |
| Indonesia | 45 |
| Papua New Guinea | 35 |
| DR Congo | 35 |
| Russia | 30 |
| Malawi | 29 |
| Burundi | 28 |
| Mozambique | 25 |
Events at sea, and satellite fire detections with no country resolved, are counted in the total above but cannot appear in this table.
How to read this page
These are events that reached the monitored feeds on this date — USGS, GDACS, NASA EONET and FIRMS, NOAA/NWS, EMSC and ReliefWeb. Recorded is not the same as happened. A flood in a country with no public alerting system may not appear here at all, and a single storm can be published as several records by different agencies.
Counts are also uneven by design of the sources, not of the day: satellite fire detection publishes hundreds of zones where a national weather service publishes one warning for a whole region. That is why the comparison above is against this site's own recent daily average rather than against any absolute idea of a normal day.
Full method on methodology; every feed and its update cadence on data sources.