Earthquakes near Tunja through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 6.5 on January 19, 1995 (16 km ESE of Páez, Colombia), for which NOAA records 7 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 7 here, back to 1826. NOAA records deaths in 2 of the events here, 10 in all. NOAA’s record here begins on June 18, 1826 with an earthquake (Engativa,Bogota,Ramiriqui,Umbita,Tunja).

• January 19, 1995Earthquake · M 6.516 km ESE of Páez, Colombia · 7 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI
• September 18, 1900Earthquake · M 7.9NOAA NCEI
• June 18, 1826Earthquake · M 8.2 (est.)Engativa,Bogota,Ramiriqui,Umbita,TunjaNOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Tunja 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