Earthquakes near Bishkek through history

It was also the deadliest: NOAA records 450 deaths for it. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 5 here, back to 1475. NOAA records deaths in 3 of the events here, 579 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 7.3 on August 19, 1992 (60 km ENE of Toktogul, Kyrgyzstan). NOAA’s record here begins in 1475 with an earthquake (Bolosagun).

• August 19, 1992Earthquake · M 7.360 km ENE of Toktogul, Kyrgyzstan · 75 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• January 3, 1911Earthquake · M 8.0The 1911 Kemin Earthquake, Kyrgyzstan · 450 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• 1475Earthquake · M 6.4 (est.)BolosagunNOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Bishkek 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