Earthquakes near Los Ángeles, Biobio through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 7.9 on January 25, 1939 (26 km WNW of San Carlos, Chile), for which NOAA records 30,000 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 19 here, back to 1562. NOAA records deaths in 11 of the events here, 35,017 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 8.8 on February 27, 2010 (2010 Maule, Chile Earthquake). NOAA’s record here begins on October 28, 1562 with an earthquake. It grows thinner going back: 10 of the 19 significant earthquakes NOAA lists here are from 1927 on. NOAA lists 7 tsunamis that began within 100 km of Los Ángeles, Biobio, and 7 from elsewhere that reached it with deaths or a metre of water or more. The highest water NOAA records here was 8.4 m, on February 27, 2010. The deadliest, on February 8, 1570, killed 2,000 people here by NOAA’s runup records.

• February 27, 2010Earthquake · M 8.82010 Maule, Chile Earthquake · 558 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• February 27, 2010Tsunami · 8.4 m hereCentral Chile · 69 deaths here (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• May 22, 1960Earthquake · M 9.51960 Great Chilean Earthquake (Valdivia Earthquake) · 2,226 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• January 25, 1939Earthquake · M 7.926 km WNW of San Carlos, Chile · 30,000 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• February 8, 1570TsunamiCentral Chile · 2,000 deaths here (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• October 28, 1562Earthquake · M 8.0 (est.)NOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Los Ángeles, Biobio 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