Earthquakes in Mozambique, 1927–2026

It was also the deadliest: NOAA records 4 deaths for it. 4 earthquakes here in these years are on NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes. 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
• February 22, 2006Earthquake · M 7.0160 km SE of Chipinge, Zimbabwe · 4 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• May 14, 1985Earthquake · M 6.4120 km E of Madimba, TanzaniaUSGS
• October 9, 1942Earthquake · M 6.438 km S of Mbamba Bay, TanzaniaUSGS
• May 19, 1940Earthquake · M 6.1203 km N of Chokwé, MozambiqueUSGS
• October 23, 1938Earthquake · M 6.1198 km SE of António Enes, MozambiqueUSGS

• 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 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 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