Global disaster timeline

Year-to-year variation is mostly chance. The global rate of large earthquakes is close to constant over decades; the bars above fluctuate the way any count of rare events fluctuates. A tall bar does not mean the planet was more active that year in any meaningful sense, and neither does a short one mean it was calmer.

A partial year at either end of the range will appear artificially short simply because it is not a whole year of data.