Earthquakes near Rome through history

The one on January 13, 1915 was the deadliest: NOAA records 29,978 deaths for it. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 31 here, back to AD 258. NOAA records deaths in 8 of the events here, 42,377 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 5.7 on January 18, 2017 (5 km ESE of Cittareale, Italy). NOAA’s record here begins in AD 258 with an earthquake (Rome). It grows thinner going back: 7 of the 31 significant earthquakes NOAA lists here are from 1927 on. NOAA lists 2 tsunamis that began within 100 km of Rome.

• January 18, 2017Earthquake · M 5.75 km ESE of Cittareale, Italy · 34 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• January 13, 1915Earthquake · M 6.74 km WNW of San Benedetto dei Marsi, Italy · 29,978 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• February 2, 1703Earthquake · M 6.7 (est.)L'aquila (Aquila) · 10,000 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• AD 258EarthquakeRomeNOAA NCEI
• AD 258TsunamiTyrrhenian SeaNOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Rome 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