Earthquakes near Ashgabat, 1927–2026

The one on October 5, 1948 was the deadliest: NOAA records 110,000 deaths for it. 5 earthquakes here in these years are on NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes. NOAA records deaths in 4 of the events here, 113,871 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 5.5 on January 3, 1969 (Ne Khurasan Province).

• January 3, 1969Earthquake · M 5.5Ne Khurasan Province · 50 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• October 5, 1948Earthquake · M 7.214 km N of Ashgabat, Turkmenistan · 110,000 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• May 1, 1929Earthquake · M 7.240 km SSE of Baharly, Turkmenistan · 3,800 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia

• An event counts for Ashgabat when it began within 100 km of its centre, or 200 km for an earthquake of magnitude 7 or more. Damage can reach further.
• USGS counts here start at magnitude 6: the catalogue’s smaller quakes thin out going back, where few instruments listened.
• NOAA lists significant events only: earthquakes that killed, did about $1 million of damage, reached magnitude 7.5 or intensity X, or raised a tsunami, and eruptions and tsunamis by like measures. Magnitudes before 1900 are its estimates from written accounts.
• Deaths are NOAA’s total for each event, wherever people died, its tsunami and fires included. A tsunami counts the dead its runup records give for this place: NOAA’s total for a tsunami includes its source quake’s.
• A tsunami from elsewhere counts where one of its runups killed or rose a metre or more.
• Counted to October 19, 2026, as is the map. The last 30 days ask USGS again.

How the layers work, where their data comes from and what they can’t tell you: Earthquakes, live, The world through history