Earthquakes near Tauranga, 2017–2026

NOAA lists one significant eruption of one volcano within 100 km of Tauranga. The largest was Whakaari/White Island on December 9, 2019, at 2 on the volcanic explosivity index. It killed 22 people by NOAA’s count.

• March 17, 2023Earthquake · M 5.38 km WNW of Kawerau, New ZealandUSGS
• December 15, 2019Earthquake · M 5.149 km NNE of Whakatane, New ZealandUSGS
• December 9, 2019Eruption · VEI 2Whakaari/White Island · 22 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia

• An event counts for Tauranga 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 are its ComCat catalogue’s earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or more, aftershocks included.
• 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