EARTHQUAKEM5.4

M5.4 earthquake near Merizo Village, Guam

Map: the earthquake near Merizo Village, Guam, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 5.4 earthquake struck 193 km (120 mi) west-southwest of Merizo Village, Guam on Tuesday, October 27, 2026 at 23:14 UTC, at a depth of 101 km (63 mi), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. At this intermediate depth, shaking spreads out before it reaches the surface.

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

MagnitudeM5.4
Depth101 km (63 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 27 23:14
Location12.67°N 142.99°E
Nearest townMerizo Village · 193 km
Energy2 kilotons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+0
Tsunami flagNo
PAGER alertGREEN
See it on the live 3D globe →Watch live on YouTube🔔 Get alerts near you

Why here?

This earthquake struck about 34 km (21 mi) from the boundary between the Philippine Sea and Mariana 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 101 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.

Shaking and impact

USGS’s PAGER system estimates it most likely caused no deaths (99 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 5.4 released roughly the energy of 2 kilotons of TNT. That is about 126 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 1,400,000 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).

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 57 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.

More from around the world