Earthquakes near M'Sila through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 5.6 on February 12, 1946 (Hodna Mountains), for which NOAA records 264 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 10 here, back to 1885. NOAA records deaths in 8 of the events here, 364 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 5.2 on May 14, 2010 (Northern: Beni Yellman). NOAA’s record here begins on December 3, 1885 with an earthquake (M'sila). 3 of the 10 significant earthquakes NOAA lists here came before 1927.

• May 14, 2010Earthquake · M 5.2Northern: Beni Yellman · 2 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• February 12, 1946Earthquake · M 5.6Hodna Mountains · 264 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• June 24, 1910Earthquake · M 6.51 km W of Sidi Aïssa, Algeria · 12 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI
• December 3, 1885Earthquake · M 5.9 (est.)M'sila · 33 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI

• An event counts for M'Sila 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