Earthquakes in Trinidad & Tobago, 1927–2026

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 5.5 on September 29, 2006 (Gasparillo), for which NOAA records one death. 4 earthquakes here in these years are on NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes.

• September 29, 2006Earthquake · M 5.5Gasparillo · one death (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• April 22, 1997Earthquake · M 6.718 km WSW of Scarborough, Trinidad and TobagoUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• May 3, 1994Earthquake · M 6.246 km E of Rio Claro, Trinidad and TobagoUSGS
• March 10, 1988Earthquake · M 6.762 km ESE of Sangre Grande, Trinidad and TobagoUSGS
• December 4, 1954Earthquake · M 6.123 km N of Paradise, Trinidad and TobagoUSGS
• December 23, 1945Earthquake · M 6.329 km SSE of Güiria, VenezuelaUSGS

• An event counts for Trinidad & Tobago 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 Trinidad & Tobago 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 Trinidad & Tobago, 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