Risk culture · memory
Disaster memory
Remembering past disasters helps make sense of today's risks. Filter by hazard, country or period.
- 2024
🇪🇸 Valencia floods (DANA)
≈ 220 deaths in the Valencia region
What we learned : The violence of sudden floods and the role of mobile alerting.
EM-DAT (CRED) ↗ - 2023
🇬🇷 Storm Daniel (Greece)
Deadly floods in Thessaly
What we learned : Concentrated extreme rainfall in the Mediterranean.
Meteoalarm (EUMETNET) ↗ - 2023
🇸🇮🇭🇷 Floods in Slovenia
The country's worst floods on record
What we learned : European solidarity (EU Civil Protection Mechanism).
EM-DAT (CRED) ↗ - 2022
🇫🇷🇪🇸🇵🇹 Summer 2022 wildfires
Record burnt areas in south-west Europe
What we learned : The geographic spread of wildfire risk under climate change.
EFFIS (Copernicus) ↗ - 2021
🇩🇪🇧🇪 July 2021 floods (Ahr, Belgium)
≈ 220 deaths, over €40bn in damage
What we learned : The speed of flash floods and the limits of alerting systems.
Centre de crise national (Belgique) ↗ - 2018
🇬🇷 Mati wildfires (Attica)
≈ 100 deaths near Athens
What we learned : Evacuation planning in peri-urban areas.
EM-DAT (CRED) ↗ - 2017
🇮🇪 Storm Ophelia
Ireland's first national red warning
What we learned : Ex-hurricanes now reach Western Europe.
EM-DAT (CRED) ↗ - 2017
🇵🇹 Pedrógão Grande wildfires
≈ 66 deaths in Portugal
What we learned : A reform of wildfire management and prevention.
EM-DAT (CRED) ↗ - 2010
🇫🇷 Storm Xynthia
47 deaths, coastal flooding on the Atlantic coast
What we learned : Don't build in surge zones; the challenge of night-time alerts.
Rapport du Sénat (r09-554) ↗ - 2009
🇮🇹 L'Aquila earthquake
≈ 309 deaths in Abruzzo
What we learned : Earthquake prevention and public risk communication.
EM-DAT (CRED) ↗ - 2005
🇸🇪🇩🇰🇱🇹 Storm Gudrun (Erwin)
Massive forest and power damage in Scandinavia and the Baltics
What we learned : The resilience of power grids to storms.
EM-DAT (CRED) ↗ - 2003
🇫🇷 August 2003 heatwave
≈ 14,800 deaths in France
What we learned : Health surveillance and protecting isolated older people.
Inserm ↗ - 2002
🇩🇪🇦🇹 Central European floods (Elbe, Danube)
Major damage in Germany and Austria
What we learned : Cross-border cooperation on large river basins.
EM-DAT (CRED) ↗ - 2001
🇫🇷 AZF plant explosion (Toulouse)
31 deaths, Seveso site
What we learned : Controlling urban development around hazardous industrial sites.
BARPI — base ARIA (fiche 21329) ↗ - 1999
🇫🇷🇩🇪 Storms Lothar & Martin
≈ 92 deaths in France, forests and grids devastated
What we learned : How exposed power grids and forests are to extreme winds.
Météo-France ↗ - 1997
🇵🇱🇩🇪 Oder flood (“millennium flood”)
≈ 100 deaths in Poland, Czechia and Germany
What we learned : An overhaul of flood management in Central Europe.
EM-DAT (CRED) ↗ - 1977
🇷🇴 Vrancea earthquake
≈ 1,570 deaths, mostly in Bucharest
What we learned : Stronger earthquake-resistant building standards.
EM-DAT (CRED) ↗ - 1953
🇳🇱🇧🇪 North Sea flood
≈ 1,836 deaths in the Netherlands
What we learned : The trigger for the Delta Works and major coastal defences.
EM-DAT (CRED) ↗
No event for this filter.