Earthquakes in New Caledonia through history

NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 16 here, back to 1875. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 7.1 on May 20, 2023 (southeast of the Loyalty Islands). NOAA’s record here begins on March 28, 1875 with a tsunami (Lifou Island, Loyalty Islands). NOAA lists 19 tsunamis that began in or off New Caledonia, and 7 from elsewhere that reached it with deaths or a metre of water or more. The highest water NOAA records here was 3 m, in May 1942. The deadliest here came on March 28, 1875 from a magnitude 8.1 earthquake (Lifou Island, Loyalty Islands): NOAA’s runup records count 25 deaths in New Caledonia.

• May 20, 2023Earthquake · M 7.1southeast of the Loyalty IslandsUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• December 5, 2018Earthquake · M 7.5166 km ESE of Tadine, New CaledoniaUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• December 25, 2010Earthquake · M 7.3141 km W of Isangel, VanuatuUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• December 27, 2003Earthquake · M 7.3201 km ESE of Tadine, New CaledoniaUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• May 16, 1995Earthquake · M 7.7249 km E of Vao, New CaledoniaUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• October 25, 1980Earthquake · M 7.2207 km E of Tadine, New CaledoniaUSGS
• May 1942Tsunami · 3 m hereNew CaledoniaNOAA NCEI
• 1936Tsunami · 2.2 m hereNew CaledoniaNOAA NCEI
• March 28, 1875Tsunami · 2.5 m hereLifou Island, Loyalty Islands · 25 deaths here (NOAA)NOAA NCEI

• An event counts for New Caledonia 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 New Caledonia 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 New Caledonia, 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