EARTHQUAKEM5.7

M5.7 earthquake near Khuzdar, Pakistan

Map: the earthquake near Khuzdar, Pakistan, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck 48 km (30 mi) west-northwest of Khuzdar, Pakistan on Saturday, October 17, 2026 at 05:06 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 Karachi, Pakistan, about 359 km (223 mi) away.

USGS’s PAGER impact estimate is YELLOW: some damage possible.

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

MagnitudeM5.7
Depth10 km (6 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 17 05:06
Location28.02°N 66.17°E
Nearest townKhuzdar · 48 km
Energy5 kilotons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+0
Tsunami flagNo
PAGER alertYELLOW
Felt reports2
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 209 km (130 mi) from the boundary between the Indian and Eurasian 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.

Shaking and impact

The strongest shaking USGS estimates was intensity 7 on the Modified Mercalli scale: very strong. About 201,662 people were exposed to moderate shaking or stronger (intensity 5 and up), including about 3,592 to very strong shaking or worse (7 and up). USGS’s PAGER system estimates it most likely caused no deaths (50 percent probability). Early estimates are revised as reports come in.

How strong was it?

Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step releases about 32 times more energy. This magnitude 5.7 released roughly the energy of 5 kilotons of TNT. That is about 355 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 500,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 9 days after it, USGS recorded no smaller earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi).

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 22 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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