EARTHQUAKEM5.3

M5.3 earthquake near Miyazaki, Japan

Map: the earthquake near Miyazaki, Japan, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck 44 km (27 mi) east-southeast of Miyazaki, Japan on Saturday, October 24, 2026 at 23:59 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 Fukuoka, Japan, about 240 km (149 mi) away.

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

MagnitudeM5.3
Depth10 km (6 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 24 23:59
Location31.82°N 131.87°E
Nearest townMiyazaki · 44 km
Energy1 kilotons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+0
Tsunami flagNo
Felt reports3
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 140 km (87 mi) from the boundary between the Eurasian and Philippine Sea 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 thrust (reverse) earthquake: one block of crust was pushed up and over another, as happens where plates collide.

How strong was it?

Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step releases about 32 times more energy. This magnitude 5.3 released roughly the energy of 1 kilotons of TNT. That is about 89 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 2,000,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 28 hours 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 99 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 24, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

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