Earthquakes near Bandar Abbas through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: an estimated magnitude 6.1 on January 11, 1897 (Qeshm Island, Larak Island), for which NOAA records 1,600 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 18 here, back to 1306. NOAA records deaths in 11 of the events here, 2,052 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 6.4 on November 14, 2021 (63 km NNW of Bandar Abbas, Iran). NOAA’s record here begins in 1306 with an earthquake (Qeshm Island). It grows thinner going back: 11 of the 18 significant earthquakes NOAA lists here are from 1927 on.

• November 14, 2021Earthquake · M 6.463 km NNW of Bandar Abbas, Iran · 2 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• March 21, 1977Earthquake · M 6.948 km NNE of Bandar Abbas, Iran · 167 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• January 11, 1897Earthquake · M 6.1 (est.)Qeshm Island, Larak Island · 1,600 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• 1306EarthquakeQeshm IslandNOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Bandar Abbas 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