Earthquakes near Bagrām through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 7.5 on October 26, 2015 (Hindu Kush region, Afghanistan), for which NOAA records 399 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 10 here, back to 1505. NOAA records deaths in 4 of the events here, 573 in all. NOAA’s record here begins on July 6, 1505 with an earthquake (Kabul). It grows thinner going back: 7 of the 10 significant earthquakes NOAA lists here are from 1927 on.

• October 26, 2015Earthquake · M 7.5Hindu Kush region, Afghanistan · 399 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• November 15, 1921Earthquake · M 7.871 km SSW of Jurm, AfghanistanUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• July 7, 1909Earthquake · M 7.752 km ESE of Farkhār, AfghanistanUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• July 6, 1505EarthquakeKabulNOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Bagrām 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