Since 1900, disasters in the Northern Triangle of Central America—Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador—have caused over one-hundred-thousand deaths, affected millions of people, and caused billions of dollars of damages. As climate change causes increasingly frequent severe weather events, the catastrophic effects of disasters are likely to contribute to poverty and political and economic instability in the region leading to greater levels of migration out of the Northern Triangle.

This study provides a descriptive analysis of all disasters recorded in the EM-DAT database affecting Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador between 1900-2022. Disasters are analyzed by frequency, severity, financial cost, distribution by country, burden of death, affected and financial cost by country, and type of disasters most prevalent in each country. These trends are then graphed over the time period of the database.

EM-DAT records 359 disasters in the Northern Triangle between 1900 and 2022. Meteorologic events (floods and storms) were the most common types of disaster (44%), followed by transport accidents (13%). Meteorologic events and earthquakes were the most severe, as measured by deaths (62% of total deaths caused by disasters), people affected (60%), and financial cost (86%). Guatemala had the greatest number of disasters (45%), deaths (68%), and affected people (52%). The financial costs of the disasters were evenly distributed between the three countries.

Meteorologic disasters are the most common and most severe type of disaster in the Northern Triangle. Earthquakes and transport accidents are also common. As climate change causes more severe storms in the region, disasters are likely to increase in severity as well. Governments and aid organizations should develop disaster preparedness and mitigation strategies to lessen the catastrophic effects of these coming disasters. Missing data in the EM-DAT dataset limits the conclusions of this study to general trends