Earthquakes of magnitude 8.5 and above since 1900

Map of 15 locations · Worldwide

Earthquakes at the top of the instrumental record, from the first decade of seismograph coverage through the early 2010s, each pinned at the epicentre given in the catalogue. Most are megathrust ruptures on subduction boundaries around the Pacific and Indian oceans, and several sent tsunamis across entire ocean basins. The entries are historical: what was measured, what the rupture did, and what contemporary and scientific accounts recorded.

Places in this collection

  • 2012 Indian Ocean earthquakes — The mainshock struck at 08:38:36 UTC, 15:38:36 WIB, on 11 April 2012, with its epicentre in the Wharton Basin about 430 km southwest of Ban…
  • 2011 Tohoku earthquake — The earthquake occurred at 14:46 local time on Friday 11 March 2011 off the Pacific coast of northeastern Japan and caused heavy damage. Th…
  • 2010 Maule earthquake — The megathrust earthquake struck off the coast of central Chile at 03:34am local time on 27 February 2010. An inclined rupture area of more…
  • 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake — The undersea rupture began at 00:58:53 UTC, 07:58:53 local time, on 26 December 2004, with its epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, and…
  • 1965 Rat Islands earthquake — The underthrusting earthquake of 4 February 1965, recorded at 05:01 UTC and 19:01 on 3 February local time, ruptured a 600 km segment of th…
  • 1964 Alaska earthquake — Known also as the Great Alaska earthquake and the Good Friday earthquake, it occurred at 5:36pm AKST on 27 March 1964, with its epicentre 2…
  • 1963 Kuril Islands earthquake — The earthquake struck east of the Kuril Islands, then part of the Soviet Union, at 05:17 UTC on 13 October. The megathrust rupture broke a…
  • 1960 Valdivia earthquake — The megathrust rupture of 22 May 1960 had its epicentre near Lumaco, approximately 570 kilometres south of Santiago, and Valdivia was the m…
  • 1957 Atka earthquake — A great earthquake struck near Atka in the Aleutian Islands of the United States on Saturday 9 March 1957 at 02:22:33pm UTC. The epicentre…
  • 1952 Kamchatka earthquake — The shock was recorded at 16:58:30 UTC on 4 November 1952 off the Pacific coast of Kamchatka, east-southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. C…
  • 1950 Assam-Tibet earthquake — The shock struck at 7:39pm Indian Standard Time on Tuesday 15 August 1950, with its epicentre placed 40 km west of Rima, also called Zayu o…
  • 1946 Aleutian Islands earthquake — The earthquake occurred near the Aleutian Islands of Alaska on 1 April 1946 and generated a tsunami with run-up reaching 42 metres at Unima…
  • 1938 Banda Sea earthquake — This oblique-slip event in the Banda Sea, then part of the Dutch East Indies, was assigned a Rossi-Forel intensity of VII, a very strong tr…
  • 1922 Vallenar earthquake — The earthquake broke the Atacama Region of Chile near the border with Argentina, with a maximum Mercalli-Sieberg intensity of XI assigned i…
  • 1906 Ecuador-Colombia earthquake — The shock struck at 10:36:10 local time on Wednesday, 31 January 1906, off the coast of Ecuador near Esmeraldas, and triggered a tsunami th…

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