Earthquakes near Palu through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 7.5 on September 28, 2018 (72 km N of Palu, Indonesia), for which NOAA records 4,340 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 12 here, back to 1907. NOAA records deaths in 9 of the events here, 4,627 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 6.7 on June 16, 2026 (40 km SE of Palu, Indonesia). NOAA’s record here begins on December 1, 1927 with an earthquake (56 km N of Poso, Indonesia). NOAA lists 2 tsunamis that began within 100 km of Palu, and 2 from elsewhere that reached it with deaths or a metre of water or more. The highest water NOAA records here was 15 m, on December 1, 1927. The deadliest here came on August 14, 1968 from a magnitude 7.8 earthquake (Banda Sea): NOAA’s runup records count 200 deaths within 100 km of Palu.

• June 16, 2026Earthquake · M 6.740 km SE of Palu, Indonesia · 3 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI
• September 28, 2018Earthquake · M 7.572 km N of Palu, Indonesia · 4,340 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• January 1, 1996Earthquake · M 7.9181 km N of Palu, Indonesia · 9 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• August 14, 1968Tsunami · 10 m hereBanda Sea · 200 deaths here (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• May 19, 1938Earthquake · M 7.7120 km NE of Palu, Indonesia · 17 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI
• December 1, 1927Earthquake · M 6.256 km N of Poso, Indonesia · 50 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI
• December 1, 1927Tsunami · 15 m hereSulawesi · 14 deaths here (NOAA)NOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Palu 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