New York, NY – On this day in history, September 26, 1665, Londoners endured one of their darkest weeks. At the height of the Great Plague, 7,165 people died in a single week. Death carts clattered down cobblestone streets as drivers called on families to “bring out your dead,” a haunting refrain that captured the scale of tragedy.
For Londoners of the 17th century, that toll seemed apocalyptic. Yet when compared with today’s global mortality, it represents just a fraction of the losses that occur worldwide every day.
According to WorldPopulation.com, roughly 172,824 people die each day across Earth in 2025—an average of 7,201 per hour, 120 per minute, and two per second. In other words, what took London seven days to endure during the plague now happens across the globe in about 60 minutes.
WorldPopulation.com notes its data is compiled by a team of experts in population research and analysis, drawing from major sources including the United Nations, the U.S. Census Bureau, the American Community Survey, and the Community Research Center.
The countries with the highest daily death totals reflect population size more than catastrophe. China reports 32,077 daily deaths, India 26,604, and the United States 8,460. Nigeria and Indonesia follow, each losing more than 6,000 lives every day. These deaths occur largely from natural causes, chronic illness, and aging—unlike the sudden epidemics of centuries past.
The comparison underscores how scale has shifted. In the 1600s, outbreaks like the plague wiped out large portions of city populations, with little medical defense. Today, while pandemics and crises still occur, advances in medicine, sanitation, and public health mean mortality is spread more evenly across societies and time.
Still, the perspective is sobering: Earth’s population now exceeds 8 billion, and daily mortality dwarfs what once seemed like the greatest calamities in human history.
