{ "slug": "landslide-death", "question": "What are the odds of dying in a landslide?", "category": "natural", "no_reliable_estimate": false, "perceived": { "description": "Landslides rarely feature in the mental inventory of natural-disaster threats. Earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods dominate the fear hierarchy; landslides are perceived as a secondary consequence rather than an independent killer. This is partly a classification artifact — many landslide deaths are attributed to the earthquake or storm that triggered them — and partly a visibility problem: landslides tend to kill in small, dispersed events across mountainous terrain in low-income countries, generating little international media coverage per incident.\n", "rough_estimate": "most people would rank landslides well below earthquakes, floods, and storms as a cause of death — the actual annual toll is comparable", "kind": "intuition" }, "native": { "display": "~4,600 deaths per year globally (2004–2016 average, Froude & Petley 2018)", "numerator": 4600, "denominator": 5000000000, "unit": "per year", "population": "global adults" }, "normalized": { "lifetime_us_adult": 0.0000543, "display": "1 in ~18,400 lifetime (global adult)", "log_value": -4.27, "assumptions": "Froude and Petley (2018) documented 55,997 fatalities in 4,862 distinct landslide events from 2004 to 2016 using the Global Fatal Landslide Database — an average of ~4,615 deaths per year. This figure is itself an undercount: Petley (2012) showed that the widely used EM-DAT disaster database undercounted landslide fatalities by over 400%. Annual rate: 4,600 / 5,000,000,000 = 9.2 × 10⁻⁷. Compounded over 59 years: 1 − (1 − 9.2e-7)^59 ≈ 5.43 × 10⁻⁵, i.e. roughly 1 in 18,400. The uncertainty band uses a low of ~3,000 deaths/year (low: 3.54e-5) and a high of ~6,500/year (high: 7.67e-5).\n", "uncertainty": { "low": 0.0000354, "high": 0.0000767 }, "scope": "global_adult_lifetime" }, "sources": [ { "url": "https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles/18/2161/2018/", "title": "Global fatal landslide occurrence from 2004 to 2016", "publisher": "Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (Copernicus)", "source_type": "peer_reviewed", "statistic": "55,997 people were killed in 4,862 distinct non-seismically triggered landslide events between 2004 and 2016, averaging ~4,615 deaths per year", "excerpt": "\"In total, 55,997 people were killed in 4,862 distinct landslide events. The data show that the number of recorded fatal landslides and resulting fatalities has increased over the study period, with particularly high counts in South and Southeast Asia.\"\n", "source_date": "2018-08-01", "source_accessed": "2026-04-24", "archive_url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260424163343/https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles/18/2161/2018/", "calculation_notes": "Froude and Petley's 13-year dataset from the Global Fatal Landslide Database is the most comprehensive peer-reviewed accounting of global landslide mortality. At 4,600 deaths/year over a global adult population of 5 billion, the annual rate is 9.2e-7; compounded over 59 years: ~5.43e-5. The EM-DAT database, by contrast, would yield a figure several hundred percent lower.\n", "independence_note": "Independent academic dataset (Durham/Sheffield Global Fatal Landslide Database), methodologically separate from the USGS reference below.\n" }, { "url": "https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-many-deaths-result-landslides-each-year", "title": "How many deaths result from landslides each year?", "publisher": "U.S. Geological Survey", "source_type": "govt_report", "statistic": "25-50 people killed by landslides each year in the US; worldwide death toll is in the thousands", "excerpt": "\"An average of 25-50 people are killed by landslides each year in the United States. The worldwide death toll per year due to landslides is in the thousands.\"\n", "source_date": "2024-01-01", "source_accessed": "2026-04-24", "archive_url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260426203101/https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-many-deaths-result-landslides-each-year", "calculation_notes": "The USGS confirms \"worldwide death toll per year due to landslides is in the thousands,\" which is consistent with the Froude & Petley estimate of ~4,600/year. The USGS also provides the US-specific figure of 25-50 deaths per year, which anchors the US regional breakdown entry below.\n", "independence_note": "USGS is a U.S. federal science agency; its landslide mortality estimates draw on multiple international sources independently of the Sheffield/Durham academic database.\n" } ], "comparison_anchors": [ { "label": "Death in an earthquake (lifetime, global adult)", "lifetime_us_adult": 0.00028 }, { "label": "Death in a flood (lifetime, global adult)", "lifetime_us_adult": 0.000069 }, { "label": "Death by lightning strike (lifetime, US adult)", "lifetime_us_adult": 0.0000065 } ], "regional_breakdown": [ { "region": "South and Southeast Asia (mountainous areas)", "probability": 0.00025, "notes": "India, Nepal, China, Philippines, and Indonesia account for the majority of global landslide fatalities. Monsoon-season rainfall on deforested slopes is the primary trigger." }, { "region": "Central and South America (Andes, Central American highlands)", "probability": 0.00012, "notes": "Colombia, Brazil, and Guatemala report significant annual fatalities, often in informal settlements on steep terrain." }, { "region": "United States and Western Europe", "probability": 0.0000015, "notes": "Approximately 25-50 deaths per year in the US; landslide risk mapping and building codes substantially reduce exposure." } ], "short_label": "Landslide death", "myth_framing": "underrated", "outcome_severity": "fatal", "exposure_pattern": "acute", "outcome_type": "death", "valence": "negative", "caveats": "Risk is heavily concentrated in mountainous regions of South and Southeast Asia (India, Nepal, China, Philippines, Indonesia), Central and South America (Colombia, Brazil, Guatemala), and parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Steep terrain, heavy rainfall, deforestation, and informal construction on unstable slopes are the primary risk factors. Residents of flat, geologically stable terrain face effectively zero risk. The 4,600 deaths/year figure excludes seismically triggered landslides, which would add significantly to the total in earthquake-prone years. Climate change is expected to increase landslide frequency through more intense rainfall events, though the magnitude of the effect is uncertain.\n", "quality_score": { "d1": 4, "d2": 5, "d3": 5, "d4": 3, "d5": 4, "d6": 4, "d7": 3, "d8": 4, "avg": 4, "scored_by": "extracted-from-transcript", "scored_at": "2026-05-03", "methodology_version": "1.0" }, "reviewer": "8d-eval-2026-05-16", "last_reviewed": "2026-05-16", "reviewed": true, "generated_at": "2026-04-24", "image": { "alt": "A stylized hillside with displaced earth and rocks, flat vector illustration in muted brown and grey tones." }, "attribution": "Likelier — https://likelier.app", "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/", "support": "https://buymeacoffee.com/kgluszczyk?via=likelier&utm_content=api-fear-single", "canonical_url": "https://likelier.app/landslide-death" }