EARTHQUAKEM5.4

M5.4 earthquake off the coast of Ecuador

Map: the earthquake off the coast of Ecuador, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 5.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Ecuador on Thursday, October 15, 2026 at 11:16 UTC, at a depth of 10 km (6 mi), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Shallow quakes like this one shake the surface hardest. The epicenter was about 512 km (318 mi) northeast of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, Ecuador. The nearest city of a million or more people is Guayaquil, Ecuador, about 697 km (433 mi) away.

MagnitudeM5.4
Depth10 km (6 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 15 11:16
Location0.90°N 85.36°W
Nearest townPuerto Baquerizo Moreno · 512 km
Energy2 kilotons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+1
Tsunami flagNo
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Why here?

This earthquake struck right along the boundary between the Nazca and Cocos 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.

What kind of fault?

USGS’s analysis of the seismic waves shows it was a strike-slip earthquake: the two sides of the fault slid past each other sideways, like California’s San Andreas Fault.

How strong was it?

Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step releases about 32 times more energy. This magnitude 5.4 released roughly the energy of 2 kilotons of TNT. That is about 126 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 1,400,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 11 days after it, USGS recorded 1 smaller earthquake of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi). It was a magnitude 5.2 on October 16 at 19:34 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 9 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 15, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

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