EARTHQUAKEM4.9

M4.9 earthquake near Shibayama, Japan

Map: the earthquake near Shibayama, Japan, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck 3 km (2 mi) west-southwest of Shibayama, Japan on Wednesday, October 7, 2026 at 19:13 UTC, at a depth of 73 km (45 mi), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. At this intermediate depth, shaking spreads out before it reaches the surface.

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

MagnitudeM4.9
Depth73 km (45 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 7 19:13
Location35.67°N 140.40°E
Nearest townShibayama · 3 km
Energy338 tons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+4
Tsunami flagNo
Felt reports4
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 115 km (71 mi) from the boundary between the North American and Philippine Sea 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. At 73 km down, it most likely broke inside a plate that is sinking into the mantle beneath its neighbor, in what geologists call a subduction zone.

The red lines on the map are plate boundaries.

How strong was it?

Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step releases about 32 times more energy. This magnitude 4.9 released roughly the energy of 338 tons of TNT. That is about 22 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 7,900,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 19 days after it, USGS recorded 4 smaller earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi). The largest was a magnitude 4.7 on October 11 at 16:24 UTC.

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 280 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 7, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

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