Proportionately speaking, the number of deaths around the world per year fluctuates within mostly limited parameters. Other than pandemics and global wars, the attrition rate is pretty consistent...and has probably even slowed during the past century due to improved diet and overall health care.
The modern media, however, is able to report catastrophes and related deaths much more extensively than in the past, so they create a perception of extraordinary calamity when actually, it isn't really that extraordinary.