Is Mother Nature acting out?

More disasters than usual?
The number of reported natural disasters globally has been on a fast rise since the 1960s. EM-DAT disasters are up from about 120 in 1980 to more than 400 in 2007.

But the increase has nothing to do with the planet.

Rather, the rise is the result better monitoring and reporting of natural disasters, said Charles Mandeville, a volcanologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

And the actual number of people killed worldwide by natural disasters has been relatively small (under 500,000 per year) since the 1960s compared previous decades in the 20th century when death tolls sometimes exceeded 2 million or even 3 million, according to EM-DAT.

That drop is the due to better building codes and preparation, Mandeville said.

"And we've done a much better job of evacuating people that need to be evacuated, the evacuation of Chaiten, Chile, [this week] being a good example," he said. "We know now that maybe 30 kilometers is a reasonable evacuation distance for a volcano that is erupting explosively from what we have learned from Krakatau [in 1883] and Monserrat [in 1997] and Mt. Pinatubo [in 1991]."

The 1982 eruption of El Chicon volcano in Chiapas, Mexico, helped planners learn about the hazards of volcanoes that have glaciers on them, he said.

INTERACTIVE Nine killer earthquakes Thousands rattle the Earth daily — but only a few cause utter devastation.

"We're starting to learn not only recognizing the precursors to certain things like volcanic eruptions," Mandeville said. "We're trying to get to that state of affairs with earthquakes by mapping out where strains are very high and also trying to build buildings that will withstand a moderate magnitude earthquake."

Many past fatalities owed to people going back to partially damaged buildings, which then collapsed or experienced fires related to natural gas pipeline breaks.

The location factor
The ongoing Reno rumble and the Midwest earthquake last month spared human lives, unlike the disastrous cyclone in Myanmar, where the death toll could exceed 100,000, according to the latest reports.

"Mother Nature can be cruel especially when human nature is careless and unprepared," Patzert said. "The Earth is very dynamic. People forget that cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes — some years are active, some years are not."

The latest natural events are a wake-up call and reminder that Earth is dynamic, he said.

Many homes and businesses are now built in coastal and earthquake-prone regions. This shows a "disdain for the power of nature," Patzert said. "She's still in charge."

For this reason, if the Indonesian tsunami of 2004 had happened half a century ago, it would've killed some 30,000 people, rather than nearly 300,000, Patzert said.

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