Most severe and most recent earthquakes

Earthquakes today

The map and table below list all earthquakes of the last 24 hours that had a magnitude of at least 2.5 on the Richter scale and were located near inhabited areas. Quakes on the open sea are therefore not included here. The times given refer to the coordinated universal time UTC.

We update this page up to 6 times a day. We expect the next update around 23:00 UTC.

The strongest earthquakes in the last 2 weeks

How earthquakes occur

The Earth is not a solid sphere of stone, but consists of different layers with different densities and temperatures. The outermost layer is the Earth's crust and consists of brittle rock masses that float on the Earth's mantle below. Both layers together form the lithosphere. The heat in the Earth's mantle causes a slow but steady movement in which hot and therefore viscous and malleable rock masses slowly rise from the Earth's interior, cool down again and sink once more. These movements are transferred to the continental plates that make up the Earth's outer crust. In the course of many millions of years, our continents drift further and further apart.

If two tectonic plates move towards each other, they fold up at the edges and whole mountain ranges are formed over a long period of time. However, most of these plate boundaries do not run on land, but under water in the oceans. Such huge continental plates do not move at a constant speed. Unlike the deeper layers of the Earth, they are much cooler and therefore firmer. This creates great stresses, which at some point become so great that massive layers of rock break. The resulting jerky discharge of stress generates seismic waves over many kilometers. This is known as earthquakes at the surface.

While the Earth's crust is between 8 and 70 kilometers thick, most earthquakes occur at a depth of 20 to 50 kilometers. That is, where the rock plates are no longer hot enough to deform. The place where the Earth's crust first breaks open is called the hypocenter. The travel time of the seismic waves to different measuring stations often makes it possible to determine this very precisely. The term epicenter describes the location on the Earth's surface above the hypocenter.

The map on the right (source: NASA, DTAM project team) shows the most frequent epicenters of earthquakes, regardless of their magnitude, and thus illustrates the boundaries of the continental plates. In particular, earthquakes occur with striking frequency along the U.S. West Coast and along the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Subduction and faulting determine the extent

The extent of damage to the earth's surface is not determined solely by the magnitude of an earthquake. Depth also plays only a subordinate role. In general, one can say that the strength of an earthquake on the surface increases the closer the hypocenter is to the earth's surface. The more earth mass between the rupture point and the surface, the more vibrations are absorbed.

The most important factor, however, is the direction of movement of the tectonic plates. If two plates scrape past each other in opposite directions, this is called a fault. If the tension built up in the rock plates is released, an earthquake occurs. However, the seismic waves propagate along the fault edge over long distances at high speed. The area of influence on the surface is therefore enormous. In addition to the San Andreas Fault in California, the quake in Myanmar in March 2025 was a well-known example of this. The fault line runs roughly north-south through Myanmar, but even in Bangkok, 1000 km away, there was still damage and casualties.

The situation is different when the continental plates do not move parallel to each other, but one plate slides under another. This is called subduction. Examples of this are the Himalayan Mountains and the European Alps, which were formed when tectonic plates moved towards each other. One plate dives under the other and a mountain range forms on the surface along the subduction zone. The discharging energy is higher due to the larger, moving rock masses - the magnitude is therefore also higher, but so is the earthquake depth. Above all, however, the seismic waves no longer move parallel to the earth's surface, but run predominantly upwards and downwards from the hypocenter. They therefore occur on the earth's surface in a much smaller area. The damage at precisely this point is many times higher, as the seismic energy acts in concentrated form almost at a single point. However, the probability of a city being located here of all places is much lower because a much smaller area is affected. In fact, most subduction zones are located in the oceans. Tsunamis can be a consequence of this, but the actual earthquake usually causes much less damage on the surface.

The most severe earthquakes since 1950

Chile, Alaska (USA) and Indonesia appear several times in the list of the most severe earthquakes over the last 60 years. The total damage column includes destroyed homes and financial losses. It does not include victims and damage from tsunamis possibly triggered by the quakes.

Order by:  MagnitudeDeathsTotal damage