M4.7 earthquake near Tambolaka, Indonesia

A magnitude 4.7 earthquake struck 39 km (24 mi) southwest of Tambolaka, Indonesia on Thursday, October 8, 2026 at 05:06 UTC, at a depth of 60 km (37 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 Makassar, Indonesia, about 502 km (312 mi) away.
Why here?
This earthquake struck about 164 km (102 mi) from the boundary between the Australian and Sunda 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.
How strong was it?
Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step releases about 32 times more energy. This magnitude 4.7 released roughly the energy of 169 tons of TNT. That is about 11 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 16,000,000 times more than this one.
Aftershocks
In the first 18 days after it, USGS recorded 3 smaller earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi). The largest was a magnitude 4.6 on October 17 at 12:46 UTC.
- M4.6 · 70 km W of Tambolaka, IndonesiaOct 17 12:46 UTC
- M4.5 · 71 km SW of Tambolaka, IndonesiaOct 13 09:48 UTC
- M4.1 · 32 km W of Tambolaka, IndonesiaOct 12 16:56 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 64 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or larger within 300 km (186 mi) since 1900. The strongest:
- M8.3 · 1977 Sumba, Indonesia EarthquakeAugust 19, 1977
- M7.1 · 135 km NNE of Labuan Bajo, IndonesiaMay 24, 1990
- M7.0 · 133 km NNE of Pototano, IndonesiaJuly 5, 1911
Official details, updates and the shaking map: USGS event page.
See every earthquake on October 8, 2026 or earthquakes by day.
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