EARTHQUAKEM5.1

M5.1 earthquake near Bāgeshwar, India

Map: the earthquake near Bāgeshwar, India, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck 31 km (19 mi) northwest of Bāgeshwar, India on Tuesday, October 6, 2026 at 16:53 UTC, at a depth of 16 km (10 mi), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Shallow quakes like this one shake the surface hardest. The nearest city of a million or more people is Meerut, India, about 213 km (132 mi) away.

USGS’s PAGER impact estimate is GREEN: little or no damage expected.

50 people reported feeling it to USGS “Did You Feel It?”.

MagnitudeM5.1
Depth16 km (10 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 6 16:53
Location30.04°N 79.55°E
Nearest townBāgeshwar · 31 km
Energy674 tons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+0
Tsunami flagNo
PAGER alertGREEN
Felt reports50
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 59 km (37 mi) from the boundary between the Indian and Eurasian plates. Most earthquakes happen along plate boundaries like this one, where the pieces of Earth’s outer shell collide, pull apart or grind past each other. Stress builds up over years until the rock suddenly slips.

The red lines on the map are plate boundaries.

Shaking and impact

The strongest shaking USGS estimates was intensity 5 on the Modified Mercalli scale: moderate. About 26,490 people were exposed to moderate shaking or stronger (intensity 5 and up). USGS’s PAGER system estimates it most likely caused no deaths (90 percent probability). Early estimates are revised as reports come in.

How strong was it?

Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step releases about 32 times more energy. This magnitude 5.1 released roughly the energy of 674 tons of TNT. That is about 45 times the energy of a magnitude 4.0, a quake people nearby feel but that rarely causes damage. The strongest earthquake ever recorded, magnitude 9.5 in Chile in 1960, released about 4,000,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 20 days after it, USGS recorded no smaller earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi).

Outside the United States, USGS mainly lists quakes of about magnitude 4 and up, so smaller aftershocks there are undercounted.

Earthquake history here

Before this earthquake, USGS had recorded 18 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or larger within 300 km (186 mi) since 1900. The strongest:

Official details, updates and the shaking map: USGS event page.

See every earthquake on October 6, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

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