Earthquakes near Padang, 2017–2026

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 5.2 on July 21, 2018 (22 km SE of Solok, Indonesia), for which NOAA records one death. One earthquake here in these years is on NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes. NOAA records deaths in 3 of the events here, 91 in all. NOAA lists 2 significant eruptions of one volcano within 100 km of Padang. The largest was Marapi on May 11, 2024, at 2 on the volcanic explosivity index. It killed 67 people by NOAA’s count.

• May 11, 2024Eruption · VEI 2Marapi · 67 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• July 21, 2018Earthquake · M 5.222 km SE of Solok, Indonesia · one death (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI
• August 31, 2017Earthquake · M 6.376 km SW of Pariaman, IndonesiaUSGS
• January 9, 2017Earthquake · M 5.484 km S of Padang, IndonesiaUSGS

• An event counts for Padang 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 are its ComCat catalogue’s earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or more, aftershocks included.
• 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