EARTHQUAKEM5.9

M5.9 earthquake near Nagqu, China

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

A magnitude 5.9 earthquake struck 218 km (135 mi) east-northeast of Nagqu, China on Sunday, October 25, 2026 at 11:25 UTC, at a depth of 7 km (4 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 844 km (525 mi) away.

USGS’s PAGER impact estimate is GREEN: little or no damage expected.

MagnitudeM5.9
Depth7 km (4 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 25 11:25
Location32.46°N 94.05°E
Nearest townNagqu · 218 km
Energy11 kilotons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+2
Tsunami flagNo
PAGER alertGREEN
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 563 km (350 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 7 on the Modified Mercalli scale: very strong. About 3,355 people were exposed to moderate shaking or stronger (intensity 5 and up), including about 6 to very strong shaking or worse (7 and up). USGS’s PAGER system estimates it most likely caused no deaths (90 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 5.9 released roughly the energy of 11 kilotons of TNT, about as much as the Hiroshima atomic bomb. That is about 708 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 250,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 28 hours after it, USGS recorded 2 smaller earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi). The largest was a magnitude 4.7 on October 25 at 22:01 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 14 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 25, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

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