Earthquakes in Laos through history

NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 2 here, back to 1899. NOAA records no deaths for any of them. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 6.3 on May 16, 2007 (40 km NE of Ban Houakhoua, Laos). NOAA’s record here begins in 1899 with a tsunami (North Central Vietnam). NOAA lists one tsunami that began in or off Laos. It reached 3 m, in 1899.

• May 16, 2007Earthquake · M 6.340 km NE of Ban Houakhoua, LaosUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• June 24, 1983Earthquake · M 6.943 km W of Dien Bien Phu, VietnamUSGS
• May 13, 1935Earthquake · M 6.450 km NNE of Chiang Klang, ThailandUSGS
• February 12, 1934Earthquake · M 6.267 km NNW of Sainyabuli, LaosUSGS
• December 22, 1925Earthquake · M 6.741 km S of Luang Namtha, LaosUSGS
• 1899Tsunami · 3 m highNorth Central VietnamNOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Laos when it began inside its borders, or at sea within 100 km of its coast (so one can count for two neighbours), or further out, up to 300 km, where Laos is the nearest country.
• 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.
• The map frames the box around Laos, its neighbours’ quakes included, so its count runs higher than this page’s.
• 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