Epidemiologic research of disasters is hampered by a lack of uniformity and standardization in describing these events. By applying a classification and scoring system, which recently became available, an analysis could be performed of 416 disasters from the past 40 years. Only 79 references were useful in obtaining reliable figures for a scoring on the Disaster Severity Scale (DSS). The various disaster types show a relationship between the DSS-scoring on the one hand, and the severity factor (S) and the number of dead and wounded («) on the other. It is concluded that the classification and scoring system used could serve as a tool for evaluating the majority of disasters. A small improvement of this system is recommended