ParseForge
PDC Disaster Alerts Scraper
parseforge/pdc-disaster-alerts-scraper
AutomationOther
Scrapes active disaster alerts from the Pacific Disaster Center. Returns each alert as a flat row with hazard type, severity, location, description, and issuance time. Filter by hazard type and severity level.
- Total users
- 2
- Monthly active
- 1
- Total runs
- 44
- Bookmarked
- 0
- Rating
- Not rated yet
- Last modified
- 9 days ago
Overview
PDC Disaster Alerts Scraper
Scrape PDC Disaster Alerts for active global hazards, filtered by type and severity, up to a million per run. Every alert includes its location, hazard type, severity level, description, and issuance time. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.
The Pacific Disaster Center publishes a live feed of active global hazards, but monitoring it manually means refreshing a map and clicking individual alerts. This Actor reads the public PDC Disaster Alerts feed directly, filters by hazard type and severity as it runs, and returns each matching alert in one fixed schema. No API key, no browser, no manual copying.
| Who uses it | What they scrape PDC Disaster Alerts for |
|---|---|
| Emergency response coordinators | Monitor active storms, earthquakes, and floods worldwide in one structured dataset. |
| Insurance risk analysts | Track real-time hazard warnings to correlate with exposure in affected regions. |
| Newsroom data journalists | Pull a live feed of disaster alerts for maps, timelines, and breaking-news dashboards. |
| Supply chain managers | Watch for tsunami, cyclone, and flood warnings that could disrupt shipping routes. |
What it does
This Actor collects active disaster alerts from the Pacific Disaster Center and returns each one as a flat row with its hazard type, severity, location, and description.
- 🌪️ Hazard type filter: restrict to one type: Storm, Earthquake, Flood, Wildfire, Volcano, Tsunami, Cyclone, or Drought.
- ⚠️ Severity filter: keep only Advisory, Watch, or Warning level alerts, or pull all severities.
- 📊 Flat row output: each alert is one row with hazard type, severity, location, description, and issuance time.
- 📦 Bulk export: download up to a million alerts as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML in one run.
Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.
What you can do with PDC Disaster Alerts data
🌊 Monitor active tsunami and cyclone warnings.
An emergency operations center runs the Actor hourly with severity set to Warning and hazard type set to Tsunami or Cyclone, feeding a dashboard that triggers on-call notifications.
🔥 Track wildfire alerts across a continent.
A reinsurance analyst pulls all Wildfire alerts at Watch severity or higher each morning to update exposure maps before the trading day starts.
📰 Build a live disaster-news ticker.
A newsroom developer runs the Actor every 15 minutes for all hazard types and pushes new alerts into a CMS to populate a breaking-news sidebar.
🚚 Watch for flood warnings on key logistics corridors.
A supply chain team filters for Flood alerts at Warning severity and cross-references the returned locations with their active shipping lanes.
Why choose this scraper
| What you get | |
|---|---|
| Hazard type | Storm, Earthquake, Flood, Wildfire, Volcano, Tsunami, Cyclone, or Drought |
| Severity | Advisory, Watch, or Warning |
| Location | Latitude, longitude, and country for each alert |
| Description | Full alert summary text from PDC |
| Issuance time | When the alert was published by the Pacific Disaster Center |
How it compares
No other Store actor targets PDC Disaster Alerts the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.
| PDC Disaster Alerts Scraper | Build it in-house | By hand | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | Run it now, zero config | Days of engineering | None, but hours per pull |
| When PDC Disaster Alerts changes | Maintained for you | You fix it | You re-learn the page |
| Proxies, retries, anti-bot | Built in | Your problem | Browser only |
| Output | Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export | Whatever you build | Copy-paste |
| Cost | Pay per result | Engineering time | Analyst hours |
Configure the run
Drive the Actor by selecting a hazard type and a severity level, alone or together, and filters run as each alert is read so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.
A first run with the defaults:
{
"maxItems": 10
}
A larger pull:
{
"maxItems": 200
}
Pricing
Pay-per-result: $0.00225 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.
| Results collected | Approximate cost |
|---|---|
| 100 results | $0.22 |
| 1,000 results | $2.25 |
| 10,000 results | $22.50 |
New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.
Free users
Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.
Run it
- Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
- Open the PDC Disaster Alerts Scraper.
- Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
- Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.
Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.
Use with AI agents (MCP)
Give an AI agent live access to PDC Disaster Alerts through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:
claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/pdc-disaster-alerts-scraper"
Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.
Troubleshooting
Why am I getting no results?
Check your hazard type and severity filters. If you selected a specific combination that has no active alerts right now, the run will return an empty dataset. Try setting both filters to 'All' to confirm the feed is reachable, then narrow your filters.
The run stopped at 10 alerts but I need more.
Free Apify accounts are limited to 10 items as a preview. Upgrade to a paid plan and increase the 'Maximum disaster alerts' field to pull more, up to 1,000,000.
I got an error or timeout.
The PDC feed may be temporarily slow. Retry the run. If it persists, reduce the 'Maximum disaster alerts' value to shorten the run and check your network settings on the Apify platform.
The data looks different from the PDC website.
The Actor reads the same public feed that powers the PDC map. Small differences in formatting are expected because the Actor returns structured fields. If an alert is missing, confirm it is still active on the PDC site and that your filters are not excluding it.
Can I filter by country or region?
The input does not have a country filter. Pull all alerts or filter by hazard type and severity, then filter the resulting dataset by the location fields in your own script or spreadsheet.
FAQ
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What is the Pacific Disaster Center? | The Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) is a research and operations center that provides global hazard monitoring, early warning, and risk assessment tools. Its public alert feed covers active storms, earthquakes, floods, wildfires, volcanoes, tsunamis, cyclones, and droughts worldwide. |
| Do I need an API key to scrape PDC Disaster Alerts? | No. This Actor reads the publicly available alert feed directly. You do not need to register, get an API key, or authenticate. |
| How many alerts can I scrape in one run? | Free Apify users can scrape up to 10 alerts as a preview. Paid users can set the maximum up to 1,000,000 alerts per run. |
| Can I filter by more than one hazard type at once? | The input lets you pick one hazard type per run. To collect multiple types, run the Actor once per type or select 'All' and filter the results afterward. |
| What severity levels are available? | You can filter by Advisory, Watch, or Warning. Selecting 'All' returns alerts of every severity level. |
| Does this Actor return historical disaster data? | No. This Actor scrapes the active, current alert feed from PDC. It does not access an archive of past or expired alerts. |
| What format does the data come in? | You can export your dataset as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify platform after the run completes. |
| How often does the PDC alert feed update? | The Pacific Disaster Center updates its active hazard feed continuously as new alerts are issued and existing ones change severity or expire. Schedule this Actor to run at the interval that matches your monitoring needs. |
| Can I get the latitude and longitude of each alert? | Yes. Each returned row includes the alert's geographic coordinates so you can plot it on a map or join it with other spatial data. |
| Is this Actor suitable for production monitoring? | Yes. You can schedule it on Apify to run every few minutes and push the results to a webhook, API endpoint, or cloud storage bucket. |
Related actors
Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.
🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.
⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Pacific Disaster Center. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.
Input
| Field | Type | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| hazardType | string (9 options) | Restrict to one hazard type. | all |
| severity | string (4 options) | Restrict to one severity level. | all |
| maxItems | integer | Free users limited to 10 disaster alerts (preview). Paid users optional, up to 1,000,000. | 10 |
Pricing
from $2.04 per 1,000 results
| Charged for | What it is | Price each |
|---|---|---|
| result | Single result in the default dataset. | $0.00204 to $0.00225 |
Tiered: the lower figure is the price on a higher Apify plan. Billing and the free credit live on Apify.
API
One POST returns the dataset directly. Same shape for every scraper in the library, so swapping the slug is the only change.
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/parseforge~pdc-disaster-alerts-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"helloWorld": 123
}' Examples
Input that runs as-is.
{
"helloWorld": 123
} Reviews
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Issues
We build and maintain this scraper, so a problem with it comes to us. Report it on the Apify listing and the thread stays attached to the scraper where the next person can find it: open an issue.
Broken and urgent, or you would rather not post in public? Write to parseforge@protonmail.com and it reaches the people who wrote it.