Earthquakes near Siguatepeque through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 7.5 on February 4, 1976 (7 km N of Los Amates, Guatemala), for which NOAA records 23,000 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 7 here, back to 1719. NOAA records deaths in 4 of the events here, 23,856 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 7.7 on January 13, 2001 (28 km SSW of Puerto El Triunfo, El Salvador). NOAA’s record here begins on March 5, 1719 with an earthquake (San Salvador).

• January 13, 2001Earthquake · M 7.728 km SSW of Puerto El Triunfo, El Salvador · 844 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• February 4, 1976Earthquake · M 7.57 km N of Los Amates, Guatemala · 23,000 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• September 7, 1915Earthquake · M 7.712 km NW of Chalatenango, El Salvador · 7 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI
• May 30, 1776Earthquake · M 7.9 (est.)NOAA NCEI
• March 5, 1719Earthquake · M 7.6 (est.)San SalvadorNOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Siguatepeque 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