Earthquakes in Mozambique, 2017–2026

2 earthquakes here in these years are on NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes. NOAA records no deaths for any of them. 2018 had the most magnitude 4.5+ earthquakes: 12 of the 32. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 5.6 on December 22, 2018 (53 km SSE of Chipinge, Zimbabwe).

• December 22, 2018Earthquake · M 5.653 km SSE of Chipinge, ZimbabweUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• June 5, 2018Earthquake · M 5.196 km SE of Mocímboa, MozambiqueUSGS
• March 8, 2018Earthquake · M 5.524 km NE of Nsanje, MalawiUSGS
• June 24, 2017Earthquake · M 5.632 km WNW of Dondo, MozambiqueUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• February 10, 2017Earthquake · M 5.1115 km SSE of Nsanje, MalawiUSGS

• An event counts for Mozambique 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 Mozambique is the nearest country.
• USGS counts are its ComCat catalogue’s earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or more, aftershocks included.
• 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 Mozambique, 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