Earthquakes near Seattle through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 6.7 on April 13, 1949 (4 km WNW of Roy, Washington), for which NOAA records 8 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 4 here, back to 1820. NOAA records deaths in 4 of the events here, 18 in all. NOAA’s record here begins in 1820 with a tsunami (Camano Island, Wa). NOAA lists 5 tsunamis that began within 100 km of Seattle. The highest water NOAA records here was 3 m, on November 28, 1894. The deadliest, on November 28, 1894, killed 2 people here by NOAA’s runup records.

• February 28, 2001Earthquake · M 6.8The 2001 Nisqually, Washington Earthquake · one death (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• April 13, 1949Earthquake · M 6.74 km WNW of Roy, Washington · 8 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• November 28, 1894Tsunami · 3 m herePuyallup River Delta, Tacoma, Wa · 2 deaths here (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• 1820TsunamiCamano Island, WaNOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Seattle 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