Definition of "death toll"

Food, clothing, bedding, and fire, were supplied in sufficient proportions to maintain life and health; and the three years of severe suffering passed over the cotton districts without any sensible increase of disease, and without increasing the frequency of the death toll.

1866, John Watts, The Facts of the Cotton Famine, page 232

Fascinated by the fact that the death toll of this singular storm was the fifth highest on record as regards overall effects/death tolls for a natural disaster in the United States in the 20th century […]

2011, Angela Mason, Death Rides the Sky: The Story of the 1925 Tri-State Tornado