Earthquakes near Huancayo through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 7.6 on November 1, 1947 (23 km E of Santa Rosa, Peru), for which NOAA records 233 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 9 here, back to 1699. NOAA records deaths in 4 of the events here, 373 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 5.5 on July 19, 2026 (2 km WSW of Huamancaca Chico, Peru). NOAA’s record here begins on July 14, 1699 with an earthquake (Lima). It grows thinner going back: 6 of the 9 significant earthquakes NOAA lists here are from 1927 on.

• July 19, 2026Earthquake · M 5.52 km WSW of Huamancaca Chico, Peru · 6 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI
• November 1, 1947Earthquake · M 7.623 km E of Santa Rosa, Peru · 233 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI
• September 20, 1897Earthquake · M 7.7 (est.)NOAA NCEI
• July 14, 1699Earthquake · M 7.8 (est.)LimaNOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Huancayo 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