Earthquakes near Cobán through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 7.5 on February 4, 1976 (7 km N of Los Amates, Guatemala), for which NOAA records 23,000 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 15 here, back to 1607. NOAA records deaths in 8 of the events here, 28,119 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 4.5 on October 11, 1985 (San Miguel Upsantan). NOAA’s record here begins in 1607 with an earthquake (Antigua). 11 of the 15 significant earthquakes NOAA lists here came before 1927.

• October 11, 1985Earthquake · M 4.5San Miguel UpsantanNOAA NCEI
• February 4, 1976Earthquake · M 7.57 km N of Los Amates, Guatemala · 23,000 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• August 6, 1942Earthquake · M 7.726 km SSW of La Gomera, GuatemalaUSGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• April 19, 1902Earthquake · M 7.5Near Quetzaltenango, Guatemala · 2,000 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• 1607EarthquakeAntigua · 29 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Cobán 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