Earthquakes near Gisenyi, 2017–2026

The deadliest of them was a magnitude 4.7 on May 25, 2021 (19 km WSW of Musanze, Rwanda), for which NOAA records 32 deaths. One earthquake here in these years is on NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes. 2021 had the most magnitude 4.5+ earthquakes: 13 of the 17. 8 came in the 30 days after the strongest, within 150 km of it. NOAA lists one significant eruption of one volcano within 100 km of Gisenyi. The largest was Nyiragongo on May 22, 2021, at 2 on the volcanic explosivity index. It killed 32 people by NOAA’s count.

• May 26, 2021Earthquake · M 4.716 km E of Gisenyi, RwandaUSGS
• May 25, 2021Earthquake · M 4.719 km WSW of Musanze, Rwanda · 32 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI
• May 24, 2021Earthquake · M 4.79 km N of Goma, Democratic Republic of the CongoUSGS
• May 22, 2021Eruption · VEI 2Nyiragongo · 32 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia

• An event counts for Gisenyi 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 are its ComCat catalogue’s earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or more, aftershocks included.
• 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