The biggest earthquakes ever recorded
The list below is queried live from the USGS catalogue and ranked by magnitude, covering events of magnitude 8.3 and above since 1900.
Automatic information from scientific catalogues. In an emergency, follow your local emergency service and geological survey.
| Magnitude | Place | When | Depth | Category |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9.5 | 1960 Great Chilean Earthquake (Valdivia Earthquake) | 5/22/60, 7:11 PM UTC | 25 km | Great (8 and above) |
| 9.2 | The 1964 Prince William Sound, Alaska Earthquake | 3/28/64, 3:36 AM UTC | 25 km | Great (8 and above) |
| 9.1 | 2011 Great Tohoku Earthquake, Japan | 3/11/11, 5:46 AM UTC | 29 km | Great (8 and above) |
| 9.1 | 2004 Sumatra - Andaman Islands Earthquake | 12/26/04, 12:58 AM UTC | 30 km | Great (8 and above) |
| 9.0 | 89 km ESE of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia | 11/4/52, 4:58 PM UTC | 22 km | Great (8 and above) |
| 8.8 | 2025 Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia Earthquake | 7/29/25, 11:24 PM UTC | 35 km | Great (8 and above) |
| 8.8 | 2010 Maule, Chile Earthquake | 2/27/10, 6:34 AM UTC | 23 km | Great (8 and above) |
| 8.8 | 1906 Ecuador-Colombia Earthquake | 1/31/06, 3:36 PM UTC | 20 km | Great (8 and above) |
| 8.7 | 1965 Western Aleutian Islands (Hawadax/Rat Islands) Earthquake | 2/4/65, 5:01 AM UTC | 30 km | Great (8 and above) |
| 8.6 | 2012 Wharton Basin Earthquake | 4/11/12, 8:38 AM UTC | 20 km | Great (8 and above) |
| 8.6 | 78 km WSW of Singkil, Indonesia | 3/28/05, 4:09 PM UTC | 30 km | Great (8 and above) |
| 8.6 | 1957 Atka, Alaska Earthquake | 3/9/57, 2:22 PM UTC | 25 km | Great (8 and above) |
| 8.6 | 1950 Assam-Tibet Earthquake | 8/15/50, 2:09 PM UTC | 15 km | Great (8 and above) |
| 8.6 | The 1946 Unimak Island, Alaska Earthquake | 4/1/46, 12:29 PM UTC | 15 km | Great (8 and above) |
| 8.5 | 1963 Kuril Islands Earthquake | 10/13/63, 5:17 AM UTC | 35 km | Great (8 and above) |
| 8.5 | 1938 Banda Sea Earthquake | 2/1/38, 7:04 PM UTC | 25 km | Great (8 and above) |
| 8.5 | 94 km ENE of Vallenar, Chile | 11/11/22, 4:32 AM UTC | 70 km | Great (8 and above) |
| 8.4 | 6 km SSW of Atico, Peru | 6/23/01, 8:33 PM UTC | 33 km | Great (8 and above) |
| 8.4 | 1933 Sanriku (Sanriku-oki) Earthquake, Japan | 3/2/33, 5:31 PM UTC | 15 km | Great (8 and above) |
| 8.4 | 1923 Kamchatka, Russia Earthquake | 2/3/23, 4:01 PM UTC | 15 km | Great (8 and above) |
Data from 10/16/26, 1:36 AM UTC
- U.S. Geological Survey — Earthquake Hazards ProgramLicence: Domínio público (U.S. Public Domain) · Credit: U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
How to read these numbers
Reliable instrumental measurements only exist from the early twentieth century, when seismographs started working as a network. Earlier events, such as Lisbon in 1755, have magnitudes estimated from written accounts and geological traces.
Almost every event at the top of the list came from a subduction zone, where an oceanic plate dives beneath another and the rupture can run for more than a thousand kilometres. Those are also the ones that generate ocean-wide tsunamis.
Frequently asked questions
- What was the largest earthquake ever recorded?
- Valdivia, Chile, on 22 May 1960, at moment magnitude 9.5. Its tsunami crossed the Pacific and killed people in Japan and Hawaii.
- Are earthquakes becoming more frequent?
- No. What grew is the number of stations and the speed of reporting. The average count of magnitude 7 and above has stayed around fifteen a year for decades.