Earthquakes near Asmara through history

NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 4 here, back to 1733. NOAA records no deaths for any of them. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 6.1 on August 14, 1921 (160 km NNW of Edd, Eritrea). NOAA’s record here begins on November 29, 1733 with an earthquake (Eritrea). NOAA lists one tsunami that began within 100 km of Asmara.

• March 31, 1945Earthquake · M 6.222 km S of Adi Keyh, EritreaUSGS
• August 14, 1921Earthquake · M 6.1160 km NNW of Edd, EritreaUSGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• July 20, 1884Earthquake · M 6.2 (est.)Massawa, MunculloNOAA NCEI
• July 20, 1884TsunamiOffshore MassawaNOAA NCEI
• November 2, 1875Earthquake · M 6.2 (est.)Eritrea, TigrayNOAA NCEI
• November 29, 1733EarthquakeEritreaNOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Asmara 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