EARTHQUAKEM4.8

M4.8 earthquake near Nandaime, Nicaragua

Map: the earthquake near Nandaime, Nicaragua, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 4.8 earthquake struck 17 km (11 mi) south of Nandaime, Nicaragua on Friday, October 9, 2026 at 12:33 UTC, at a depth of 166 km (103 mi), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. At this intermediate depth, shaking spreads out before it reaches the surface. The nearest city of a million or more people is San Jose, Costa Rica, about 284 km (176 mi) away.

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

MagnitudeM4.8
Depth166 km (103 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 9 12:33
Location11.60°N 86.06°W
Nearest townNandaime · 17 km
Energy239 tons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+0
Tsunami flagNo
Felt reports3
See it on the live 3D globe →Watch live on YouTube🔔 Get alerts near you

Why here?

This earthquake struck about 156 km (97 mi) from the boundary between the Cocos and Caribbean 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 166 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 4.8 released roughly the energy of 239 tons of TNT. That is about 16 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 11,000,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 17 days after it, USGS recorded no smaller earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi).

A stronger magnitude 4.9 followed on October 19 at 05:18 UTC, about 70 km (43 mi) away, so this one is now considered a foreshock.

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 117 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 9, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

More from around the world