Earthquakes near Bern through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: an earthquake on October 18, 1356 (Basel), for which NOAA records 300 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 21 here, back to AD 563. NOAA records deaths in 5 of the events here, 414 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 3.9 on December 8, 2006 (Basel). NOAA’s record here begins in AD 563 with a tsunami (Lake Geneva). NOAA lists 4 tsunamis that began within 100 km of Bern. The highest water NOAA records here was 18 m, on March 11, 1584.

• December 8, 2006Earthquake · M 3.9BaselNOAA NCEI
• January 25, 1946Earthquake · M 6.22 km WNW of Kandersteg, SwitzerlandUSGS
• March 11, 1817Earthquake · M 8.0 (est.)Chamonix Valley · 4 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• March 11, 1584Tsunami · 18 m hereSwitzerlandNOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• October 18, 1356EarthquakeBasel · 300 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• AD 563TsunamiLake GenevaNOAA NCEI · Wikipedia

• An event counts for Bern 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