Earthquakes in Uruguay through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: an earthquake on October 31, 1542, for which NOAA records 14 deaths. NOAA records deaths in 2 of the events here, 15 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is an earthquake on June 5, 1888 (Cologne). NOAA’s record here begins on October 31, 1542 with an earthquake. NOAA lists 6 tsunamis that began in or off Uruguay. The highest of them reached 1 m, on February 9, 2014. The deadliest, on October 31, 1542, killed 14 people here by NOAA’s runup records.

• February 9, 2014Tsunami · 1 m highCassino Beach, Rio Grande Do SulNOAA NCEI
• June 5, 1888EarthquakeCologneNOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• October 31, 1542Earthquake14 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• October 31, 1542TsunamiRio San Juan · 14 deaths here (NOAA)NOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Uruguay 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 Uruguay 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 Uruguay, 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