How likely is it that I will die from a terrorist attack?

Answer

Hello Angelique,

Let’s add some data. On this website you will find a graph with the number of deaths from terrorist attacks in the last 45 years:

http://www.datagraver.com/case/people-killed-by-terrorism-per-year-in-western-europe-1970-2015

You see that there are now far fewer deaths in terrorist attacks than in the 1970s and 1980s.

On average over the last 35 years, there are about 180 deaths per year in Western Europe. This is for a total population of roughly 250 million people. So the chance of dying in a terrorist attack is just under 1 in 1 million. These are figures for Western Europe, but I am convinced that they are equally representative for Belgium.

It is also useful to compare this number with

* chance of being struck by lightning: 1 in 1 million

* risk of a heart attack: 1 in 1000

* chance of dying in a traffic accident: 1 in 15,000

As you can see, the chance of dying in a terrorist attack is all in all quite small.

Kind regards,

Philippe Tassin