Earthquakes near Modesto through history

It was also the deadliest: NOAA records 700 deaths for it. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 10 here, back to 1836. NOAA records deaths in 2 of the events here, 730 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 5.6 on October 31, 2007 (San Jose). NOAA’s record here begins on June 10, 1836 with an earthquake. NOAA lists 2 tsunamis that began within 100 km of Modesto. The highest of them reached 4.5 m, on October 21, 1868.

• October 31, 2007Earthquake · M 5.6San JoseNOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• April 18, 1906Earthquake · M 7.9The 1906 San Francisco, California Earthquake · 700 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• October 21, 1868Tsunami · 4.5 m highN. CaliforniaNOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• June 1838Earthquake · M 7.0 (est.)San Francisco,San Jose,Santa ClaraNOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• June 10, 1836EarthquakeNOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Modesto 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