With news today of an earthquake in Afghanistan that has killed upwards of 80 people, the United Nations announced a new measure of the severity of natural and human-caused disasters. Instead of listing individual casualties, the international agency will provide the information in a new unit called the DSE, or drone strike equivalent. “The average U.S. drone strike vaporizes twelve innocent people, usually while they’re enjoying some peaceful family time. This gives us a baseline level of tragedy and injustice that we can compare all other events to,” says the UN’s chief statistician. The earthquake in Afghanistan rates 4.71 DSE. The sinking of a whale-watching boat off Canada’s Atlantic Coast is a .43 DSE event. The Cubs’ loss in the Major League Baseball playoffs came in at 9.79 DSE. The new unit of measure is expected to help policymakers prioritize responses to events and streamline communications.