More people mean more opportunities for things to go wrong. We re certainly seeing a rise in the numbers of disasters happening all over the world, as development speeds up in areas such as Asia and Africa. But the regions have always been prone to disasters simply because of their large populations and the natural hazards that occur there. The plains of central Africa are prone to drought and have been for as long as people have been keeping written records. Volcanoes are very common all around this huge circle because of the movement of tectonic plates away from its center.
Disaster is nothing new.
But there is another factor at work here. We're not referring to just journalists reporting, but scientific reporting as well. Even though history records great disasters, worldwide records are very sparse. We re doing a better job nowadays of keeping up with disasters. The Internet, world-wide news agencies and satellite television provide information as fast as the speed of light.