EARTHQUAKEM5.2

M5.2 earthquake near Port-Olry, Vanuatu

Map: the earthquake near Port-Olry, Vanuatu, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 5.2 earthquake struck 206 km (128 mi) northwest of Port-Olry, Vanuatu on Tuesday, October 20, 2026 at 06:29 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.

MagnitudeM5.2
Depth10 km (6 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 20 06:29
Location13.86°S 165.59°E
Nearest townPort-Olry · 206 km
Energy951 tons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+46
Tsunami flagNo
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 62 km (38 mi) from the boundary between the Pacific and Australian 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 6 days after it, USGS recorded 46 smaller earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi). The largest was a magnitude 5.1 on October 23 at 22:05 UTC.

A stronger magnitude 6.9 followed on October 24 at 02:31 UTC, about 23 km (14 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 312 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 20, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

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