EARTHQUAKEM7.0

M7.0 earthquake near Nagqu, China

Map: the earthquake near Nagqu, China, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck 191 km (119 mi) east-northeast of Nagqu, China on Thursday, October 22, 2026 at 14:33 UTC, at a depth of 18 km (11 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 Xining, China, about 870 km (541 mi) away.

USGS’s PAGER impact estimate is ORANGE: significant damage likely.

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

MagnitudeM7.0
Depth18 km (11 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 22 14:33
Location32.38°N 93.78°E
Nearest townNagqu · 191 km
Energy477 kilotons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+21
Tsunami flagNo
PAGER alertORANGE
Felt reports8
See it on the live 3D globe →Watch live on YouTube🔔 Get alerts near you

Video coverage

Why here?

This earthquake struck about 557 km (346 mi) from the nearest major plate boundary, which makes it an intraplate earthquake. These happen on old faults inside a plate, where stress from the plate’s slow movement is released. They are less common, but can surprise areas that rarely feel quakes.

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.

Shaking and impact

The strongest shaking USGS estimates was intensity 8 on the Modified Mercalli scale: severe. About 110,007 people were exposed to moderate shaking or stronger (intensity 5 and up), including about 6,348 to very strong shaking or worse (7 and up). USGS’s PAGER system estimates between 10 and 100 deaths as the most likely range (37 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 7.0 released roughly the energy of 477 kilotons of TNT, about 32 times the Hiroshima atomic bomb. That is about 32,000 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 5,600 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 4 days after it, USGS recorded 21 smaller earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more within 250 km (155 mi). The largest was a magnitude 5.9 on October 25 at 11:25 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 12 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 22, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

More from around the world