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The largest earthquakes in history
Since 1950, instruments have recorded 13 earthquakes of magnitude 8.5 or higher. The table below lists them all, from the 1960 Valdivia record to the most recent one, with one line of context for each.
Every M8.5+ earthquake since 1950
| Date | Location | Magnitude | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 22, 1960 | Valdivia, Chile | 9.5 | The largest earthquake ever recorded by instruments; its tsunami crossed the Pacific to Hawaii and Japan. |
| March 28, 1964 | Alaska (Prince William Sound), USA | 9.2 | The largest in North America; the shaking lasted about four and a half minutes. |
| December 26, 2004 | Sumatra and Andaman, Indian Ocean | 9.1 | The tsunami struck the coasts of more than ten countries; one of the deadliest natural disasters of the modern era. |
| March 11, 2011 | Tohoku, Japan | 9.1 | The tsunami devastated northeastern Japan and led to the Fukushima nuclear accident. |
| November 4, 1952 | Kamchatka, Russia | 9.0 | Its tsunami crossed the Pacific and damaged Hawaii, nearly 5,000 km from the epicenter. |
| February 27, 2010 | Maule, Chile | 8.8 | Struck central Chile; seismic building codes helped save many lives. |
| July 29, 2025 | Kamchatka, Russia | 8.8 | The largest since 2011; it triggered tsunami alerts across the whole Pacific, from Japan to Chile. |
| February 4, 1965 | Rat Islands (Aleutians), USA | 8.7 | In the nearly uninhabited Aleutian Islands; the tsunami stayed within the North Pacific. |
| August 15, 1950 | Assam and Tibet, Himalayas | 8.6 | The largest ever recorded in a continental collision zone; landslides dammed entire rivers. |
| March 9, 1957 | Andreanof Islands (Aleutians), USA | 8.6 | In the Aleutians; the tsunami caused damage in Hawaii. |
| March 28, 2005 | Nias, Indonesia | 8.6 | Three months after the 2004 disaster, on the same Sumatra subduction zone. |
| April 11, 2012 | Wharton Basin, Indian Ocean | 8.6 | A rare giant outside a subduction zone, within the oceanic plate; the tsunami was small. |
| October 13, 1963 | Kuril Islands | 8.5 | On the Kuril Trench, between Japan and Kamchatka; it generated a tsunami in the North Pacific. |
Why the giants are born in subduction zones
Of the 13 earthquakes of magnitude 8.5 or higher since 1950, nearly all happened in subduction zones: the places where an oceanic tectonic plate dives beneath another plate. Only there does a contact surface between plates exist that is large enough, hundreds of kilometers long, to store and release that much energy at once. That is also why the giants tend to arrive with tsunamis: when the fault ruptures under the sea, the vertical displacement of the ocean floor pushes the entire water column, and the resulting wave crosses oceans. That is what happened at Valdivia in 1960, Sumatra in 2004 and Tohoku in 2011.
And Brazil? The country sits in the middle of the South American plate, far from any plate boundary, which is why it has almost no earthquakes: the largest ever recorded on its territory stayed around magnitude 6, and the vast majority of tremors felt in the country are weak and deep. The very same plate, on its western edge, produces in Chile and Peru some of the largest earthquakes on the planet. Sitting mid plate is not merit, it is geography; but it is one of the reasons Brazilian engineering never needed strict seismic codes like the Chilean or Japanese ones.
Source: USGS Earthquake Catalog (public domain), snapshot of 2026-07-09. Magnitudes as listed in the catalog (1950 to 2025); the context of each event summarizes historical records and does not replace each country's official sources.
Last updated: · Methodology and sources