Earthquakes in Palau through history

NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 2 here, back to 1911. NOAA records no deaths for any of them. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 7.6 on October 23, 1914 (Caroline Islands). NOAA’s record here begins on August 16, 1911 with an earthquake (State of Yap, Federated States of Micronesia).

• May 31, 1982Earthquake · M 6.4121 km ESE of Kayangel, PalauUSGS
• July 20, 1967Earthquake · M 6.55 km SE of Ulimang, PalauUSGS
• October 23, 1914Earthquake · M 7.6Caroline IslandsNOAA NCEI
• September 29, 1912Earthquake · M 7.6245 km E of Melekeok Village, PalauUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• August 16, 1911Earthquake · M 7.8State of Yap, Federated States of MicronesiaUSGS · NOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Palau 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 Palau 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 Palau, 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