Earthquakes near Kashgar through history

The one on August 22, 1902 was the deadliest: NOAA records 5,653 deaths for it. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 19 here, back to 1896. NOAA records deaths in 8 of the events here, 5,825 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 5.7 on December 25, 2002 (Xinjiang: Wuqia). NOAA’s record here begins on November 1, 1896 with an earthquake (Xinjiang Province: Kashgar). 3 of the 19 significant earthquakes NOAA lists here came before 1927.

• December 25, 2002Earthquake · M 5.7Xinjiang: WuqiaNOAA NCEI
• August 22, 1902Earthquake · M 7.7About 50 km NNE of Kashgar, Xinjiang, ChinaUSGS
• August 22, 1902Earthquake · M 7.7Xinjiang, Turkestan · 5,653 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• November 1, 1896Earthquake · M 6.6 (est.)Xinjiang Province: Kashgar · 7 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Kashgar 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