Earthquakes in Montserrat through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: an estimated magnitude 6.5 on April 29, 1897, for which NOAA records 6 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 8 here, back to 1690. NOAA records deaths in 3 of the events here, 30 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 6.5 on March 16, 1985 (18 km SE of Market Shop, Saint Kitts and Nevis). NOAA’s record here begins on April 16, 1690 with an earthquake. 6 of the 8 significant earthquakes NOAA lists here came before 1927. NOAA lists 8 tsunamis that began in or off Montserrat. The highest water NOAA records here was 4 m, on July 12, 2003. NOAA lists 6 significant eruptions of one volcano in or off Montserrat. The largest was Soufriere Hills on June 25, 1997, at 3 on the volcanic explosivity index. It killed 22 people by NOAA’s count.

• July 12, 2003Tsunami · 4 m hereSoufriere Hills VolcanoNOAA NCEI
• August 1, 1997Eruption · VEI 3Soufriere Hills · 2 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• June 25, 1997Eruption · VEI 3Soufriere Hills · 22 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• March 16, 1985Earthquake · M 6.518 km SE of Market Shop, Saint Kitts and NevisUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• October 8, 1974Earthquake · M 7.525 km NW of Saint John’s, Antigua and BarbudaUSGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• November 10, 1935Earthquake · M 6.232 km SSE of Fig Tree, Saint Kitts and NevisUSGS
• April 29, 1897Earthquake · M 6.5 (est.)6 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• April 16, 1690Earthquake · M 7.0 (est.)NOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Montserrat 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 Montserrat 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 Montserrat, 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