Earthquakes near Cuernavaca, 1927–2026

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 7.1 on September 19, 2017 (1 km S of Matzaco, Mexico), for which NOAA records 369 deaths. 5 earthquakes here in these years are on NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes. NOAA records deaths in 6 of the events here, 477 in all. NOAA lists 2 significant eruptions of one volcano within 100 km of Cuernavaca. The largest was Popocatepetl on April 30, 1996, at 3 on the volcanic explosivity index. It killed 5 people by NOAA’s count.

• September 19, 2017Earthquake · M 7.11 km S of Matzaco, Mexico · 369 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• April 30, 1996Eruption · VEI 3Popocatepetl · 5 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• July 6, 1964Earthquake · M 7.310 km SW of Villa Nicolás Bravo, Mexico · 78 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia

• An event counts for Cuernavaca 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