EARTHQUAKEM5.3

M5.3 earthquake near Vilyuchinsk, Russia

Map: the earthquake near Vilyuchinsk, Russia, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck 101 km (63 mi) south-southeast of Vilyuchinsk, Russia on Saturday, October 24, 2026 at 20:35 UTC, at a depth of 70 km (44 mi), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. At this intermediate depth, shaking spreads out before it reaches the surface.

MagnitudeM5.3
Depth70 km (44 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 24 20:35
Location52.16°N 159.20°E
Nearest townVilyuchinsk · 101 km
Energy1 kilotons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+0
Tsunami flagNo
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 126 km (78 mi) from the boundary between the North American and Pacific 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. At 70 km down, it most likely broke inside a plate that is sinking into the mantle beneath its neighbor, in what geologists call a subduction zone.

The red lines on the map are plate boundaries.

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 31 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 233 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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