EARTHQUAKEM5.0

M5.0 earthquake near False Pass, Alaska

Map: the earthquake near False Pass, Alaska, with plate boundaries

First reported as magnitude 4.8, the earthquake has since been upgraded to 5.0 by the US Geological Survey. Early estimates come within minutes from the first seismic stations; the reviewed figure takes in many more.

A magnitude 5.0 earthquake struck 143 km (89 mi) south of False Pass, Alaska on Thursday, October 29, 2026 at 20:14 UTC, at a depth of 16 km (10 mi), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Shallow quakes like this one shake the surface hardest.

MagnitudeM5.0
Depth16 km (10 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 29 20:14
Location53.58°N 163.03°W
Nearest townFalse Pass · 143 km
Energy477 tons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+0
Tsunami flagNo
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 59 km (36 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.

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.

Shaking and impact

The strongest shaking USGS estimates was intensity 3 on the Modified Mercalli scale: weak.

How strong was it?

Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step releases about 32 times more energy. This magnitude 5.0 released roughly the energy of 477 tons of TNT. That is about 32 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 5,600,000 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 97 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 29, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

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