Earthquakes near Zhaotong, 1927–2026

It was also the deadliest: NOAA records 615 deaths for it. 14 earthquakes here in these years are on NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes. NOAA records deaths in 9 of the events here, 776 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 5.1 on May 18, 2020 (42 km W of Zhaotong, China).

• May 18, 2020Earthquake · M 5.142 km W of Zhaotong, China · 4 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• August 3, 2014Earthquake · M 6.233 km WSW of Zhaotong, China · 615 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• October 8, 1948Earthquake · M 6.135 km SSE of Zhaotong, China · 3 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Zhaotong 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