Earthquakes near San Juan, 1927–2026

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 6.4 on January 7, 2020 (4 km SSE of Indios, Puerto Rico), for which NOAA records 4 deaths. 4 earthquakes here in these years are on NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 5.4 on May 2, 2020 (6 km S of Tallaboa, Puerto Rico). NOAA lists 2 tsunamis that began within 100 km of San Juan. The highest of them reached 0.06 m, on January 7, 2020.

• May 2, 2020Earthquake · M 5.46 km S of Tallaboa, Puerto RicoUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• January 7, 2020Earthquake · M 6.44 km SSE of Indios, Puerto Rico · 4 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• January 7, 2020Tsunami · 0.06 m highPuerto RicoNOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• January 13, 2014Earthquake · M 6.461 km N of Hatillo, Puerto RicoUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• July 29, 1943Earthquake · M 7.745 km N of San Antonio, Puerto RicoUSGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia

• An event counts for San Juan 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