EARTHQUAKEM5.1

M5.1 earthquake near Balangonan, Philippines

Map: the earthquake near Balangonan, Philippines, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck 7 km (4 mi) north of Balangonan, Philippines on Tuesday, October 27, 2026 at 23:43 UTC, at a depth of 58 km (36 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 Davao, about 166 km (103 mi) away.

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

MagnitudeM5.1
Depth58 km (36 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 27 23:43
Location5.64°N 125.35°E
Nearest townBalangonan · 7 km
Energy674 tons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+0
Tsunami flagNo
Felt reports6
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 205 km (128 mi) from the boundary between the Philippine Sea and Sunda 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.

How strong was it?

Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step releases about 32 times more energy. This magnitude 5.1 released roughly the energy of 674 tons of TNT. That is about 45 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 4,000,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 2 hours after it, USGS recorded no smaller earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi).

A stronger magnitude 5.2 followed on October 28 at 01:11 UTC, about 6 km (4 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 241 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 27, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

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