EARTHQUAKEM5.2

M5.2 earthquake near Brisas Barra de Suchiate, Mexico

Map: the earthquake near Brisas Barra de Suchiate, Mexico, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 5.2 earthquake struck 86 km (53 mi) southwest of Brisas Barra de Suchiate, Mexico on Saturday, October 17, 2026 at 13:59 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 nearest city of a million or more people is Guatemala, Guatemala, about 259 km (161 mi) away.

MagnitudeM5.2
Depth10 km (6 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 17 13:59
Location14.05°N 92.86°W
Nearest townBrisas Barra de Suchiate · 86 km
Energy951 tons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+1
Tsunami flagNo
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 47 km (29 mi) from the boundary between the North American 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 normal-fault earthquake: the crust was being stretched, and one block dropped down relative to the other.

How strong was it?

Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step releases about 32 times more energy. This magnitude 5.2 released roughly the energy of 951 tons of TNT. That is about 63 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 2,800,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 9 days after it, USGS recorded 1 smaller earthquake of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi). It was a magnitude 4.4 on October 24 at 07:31 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 145 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 17, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

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