Earthquakes near Mendoza through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: an earthquake on March 20, 1861 (Mendoza, San Luiz), for which NOAA records 14,000 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 10 here, back to 1647. NOAA records deaths in 4 of the events here, 15,009 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 4.1 on December 10, 2008 (Potrerillos). NOAA’s record here begins on May 14, 1647 with an earthquake (Santiago).

• December 10, 2008Earthquake · M 4.1PotrerillosNOAA NCEI
• March 20, 1861EarthquakeMendoza, San Luiz · 14,000 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• July 12, 1687Earthquake · M 7.5 (est.)SantiagoNOAA NCEI
• May 14, 1647Earthquake · M 8.5 (est.)Santiago · 1,000 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia

• An event counts for Mendoza 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