Social interest in disasters is a significant factor in shaping disaster management policies, enabling the enhancement of disaster safety management and prevention activities according to the specific needs of society. However, in the past, there were limits to measuring which disasters society was particularly interested in. Hence, in this study, a method of measuring social interest using news data was devised. Specifically, we classifed news reports into natural and social disasters, creating a comprehensive Social Interest Index (SII) on disasters covering from 2011 to 2021. Additionally, we quantitatively compared the SII with budgets allocated to disaster-related efforts. Our primary findings are as follows: First, our methodology not only distinguishes natural disasters from social disasters but also identifies emerging areas of societal concern. Second, in recent years (2014-2021), social disasters gained more attention than natural disasters. Third, the disaster safety budget accounted for approximately 3.5% of Korea’s total budget, closely paralleling the SII we measured. However, exceptions were noted in cases such as heavy snow, cold waves, and heat waves, where the SII remained high, but the disaster safety budget was relatively low, indicating potential outliers. The findings of this research are projected to contribute to the improvement of national disaster management policies by providing a quantitative measure of social interest in disaster, enabling more informed and effective policy decisions.