Natural disasters killed more than 16,000 people across the globe in 2025, affecting 110.2 million and causing an estimated $169.68 billion in economic losses, according to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), based at the University of Louvain in Belgium. Asia bore the heaviest toll, accounting for nearly three-quarters of all disaster-related deaths, driven largely by earthquakes in Myanmar and Afghanistan that killed at least 3,820 and an estimated 2,200 people respectively. The year was also marked by a record drought in Syria, catastrophic wildfires in California, and severe monsoon flooding in Pakistan that claimed over 1,000 lives and displaced nearly 7 million people; CRED cautioned that the figures remain preliminary, as deaths from heatwaves and droughts in countries including Pakistan, India, and across Europe have yet to be fully counted.