Earthquakes near Modena through history

It was also the deadliest: NOAA records 1,400 deaths for it. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 41 here, back to 178 BCE. NOAA records deaths in 7 of the events here, 1,669 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 5.9 on May 29, 2012 (Emilia Romagna: Medolla, Mirandola, Cavezzo). NOAA’s record here begins in 178 BCE with an earthquake (Sabines). It grows thinner going back: 13 of the 41 significant earthquakes NOAA lists here are from 1927 on. NOAA lists 24 tsunamis that began within 100 km of Modena.

• May 29, 2012Earthquake · M 5.9Emilia Romagna: Medolla, Mirandola, Cavezzo · 17 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• September 7, 1920Earthquake · M 6.32 km SW of Molazzana, Italy · 1,400 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• June 29, 1919Earthquake · M 6.21 km NNW of Vicchio, ItalyUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• March 19, 1624TsunamiDelta Of The PoNOAA NCEI
• 178 BCEEarthquakeSabinesNOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Modena 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