Earthquakes in Rwanda, 2017–2026

The one on May 25, 2021 was the deadliest: NOAA records 32 deaths for it. One earthquake here in these years is on NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes. 2021 had the most magnitude 4.5+ earthquakes: 9 of the 11. 6 came in the 30 days after the strongest, within 150 km of it.

• May 26, 2021Earthquake · M 4.716 km E of Gisenyi, RwandaUSGS
• May 25, 2021Earthquake · M 4.719 km WSW of Musanze, Rwanda · 32 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI
• May 25, 2021Earthquake · M 4.515 km ESE of Gisenyi, RwandaUSGS
• May 23, 2021Earthquake · M 4.518 km SE of Gisenyi, RwandaUSGS
• December 5, 2017Earthquake · M 4.620 km SSE of Cyangugu, RwandaUSGS

• An event counts for Rwanda when it began inside its borders. Damage can reach across them.
• 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 Rwanda, 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