Earthquakes near Manas through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 6.4 on December 16, 1902 (Andizhan), for which NOAA records 4,880 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 7 here, back to 1902. NOAA records deaths in 3 of the events here, 4,959 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 5.6 on November 17, 2015 (Osh). NOAA’s record here begins on December 16, 1902 with an earthquake (Andizhan). 1 of the 7 significant earthquakes NOAA lists here came before 1927.

• November 17, 2015Earthquake · M 5.6OshNOAA NCEI
• August 11, 1974Earthquake · M 7.3134 km E of Kyzyl-Eshme, KyrgyzstanUSGS
• November 2, 1946Earthquake · M 7.534 km N of Kerben, KyrgyzstanUSGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• December 16, 1902Earthquake · M 6.4Andizhan · 4,880 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia

• An event counts for Manas 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