Natural Disasters

Not really - the media attention disasters get has exploded though. Widespread misery, massive destruction, and significant loss of life sells really well when bundled into a single event.

We typically judge severity by how many humans are inconvenienced or worse. Severity has increased proportional to the increase in human population. Some locales formally located by humans are now mostly vacant so a natural event in such a locale might no longer be classed as a disaster, so the number/ frequency of disasters may be decreasing. Our homes are typically sturdier, and relief efforts are at least slightly better than a century ago, on the average, so this reduces our perception of severity. On the other hand the percentage of wimps has decreased and most of us are less skilled at roughing it, so overall it averages out about the same as a century ago. Neil