Earthquakes in Tanzania, 2017–2026

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 5.5 on March 21, 2019 (54 km E of Sumbawanga, Tanzania), for which NOAA records one death. 2 earthquakes here in these years are on NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes. NOAA records deaths in 2 of the events here, 2 in all.

• August 8, 2023Earthquake · M 5.539 km SSE of Ikungi, TanzaniaUSGS
• August 12, 2020Earthquake · M 6.066 km NNE of Kilindoni, TanzaniaUSGS
• September 9, 2019Earthquake · M 5.439 km WSW of Mpanda, TanzaniaUSGS
• March 21, 2019Earthquake · M 5.554 km E of Sumbawanga, Tanzania · one death (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI
• May 25, 2017Earthquake · M 4.4Mwanza · one death (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• April 29, 2017Earthquake · M 5.383 km ESE of Kalemie, Democratic Republic of the CongoUSGS

• An event counts for Tanzania 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 Tanzania 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 Tanzania, 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