Earthquakes near Villahermosa, 1927–2026

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 3.5 on March 28, 1982 (Chiapas), for which NOAA records 1,879 deaths. 2 earthquakes here in these years are on NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes. NOAA records deaths in 4 of the events here, 1,919 in all. NOAA lists 3 significant eruptions of one volcano within 100 km of Villahermosa. The largest was Chichon, El on March 29, 1982, at 5 on the volcanic explosivity index. It killed 1,879 people by NOAA’s count.

• October 21, 1995Earthquake · M 7.213 km NW of Ocozocoautla de Espinosa, MexicoUSGS
• March 29, 1982Eruption · VEI 5Chichon, El · 1,879 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• March 28, 1982Earthquake · M 3.5Chiapas · 1,879 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• February 5, 1954Earthquake · M 6.11 km N of Misija, Mexico · 6 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Villahermosa 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