Earthquakes in Malawi through history
From 1900 to October 19, 2026, USGS recorded 2 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or more in Malawi. The strongest was a magnitude 6.2 on March 10, 1989 (9 km NNW of Salima, Malawi).
The last 30 days · as of
USGS recorded no earthquake of magnitude 4.5 or more in the area the map frames in the last 30 days.
What the record holds
It was also the deadliest: NOAA records 9 deaths for it. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 3 here, back to 1989. NOAA records deaths in 3 of the events here, 13 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 6 on December 19, 2009 (23 km SSW of Karonga, Malawi). NOAA’s record here begins on March 10, 1989 with an earthquake (9 km NNW of Salima, Malawi).
The events
Good to know
- An event counts for Malawi when it began inside its borders. Damage can reach across them.
- 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 Malawi, 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