Earthquakes near Bima, 1927–2026

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 6.5 on November 25, 2007 (28 km NNW of Dompu, Indonesia), for which NOAA records 3 deaths. 6 earthquakes here in these years are on NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes. NOAA records deaths in 4 of the events here, 195 in all. The ten years with the most magnitude 6+ earthquakes were 2007–2016, with 4 of the 10. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 6.6 on November 8, 2009 (29 km NNW of Bima, Indonesia). NOAA lists one tsunami from elsewhere that reached the coast within 100 km of Bima with deaths or a metre of water or more. The highest water NOAA records here was 15 m, on August 19, 1977. The deadliest here came on August 19, 1977 from a magnitude 8.3 earthquake (Sunda Islands): NOAA’s runup records count 189 deaths within 100 km of Bima.

• November 8, 2009Earthquake · M 6.629 km NNW of Bima, Indonesia · 2 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI
• November 25, 2007Earthquake · M 6.528 km NNW of Dompu, Indonesia · 3 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI
• August 19, 1977Tsunami · 15 m hereSunda Islands · 189 deaths here (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• November 2, 1954Earthquake · M 6.746 km NE of Bima, IndonesiaUSGS · NOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Bima 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