EARTHQUAKEM5.6

M5.6 earthquake in the South Sandwich Islands region

Map: the earthquake in the South Sandwich Islands region, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 5.6 earthquake struck in the South Sandwich Islands region on Thursday, October 29, 2026 at 05:06 UTC, at a depth of 10 km (6 mi), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Shallow quakes like this one shake the surface hardest. It struck far from land: no town on our map lies within 600 km (373 mi).

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

MagnitudeM5.6
Depth10 km (6 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 29 05:06
Location60.34°S 28.01°W
Energy4 kilotons TNT
Tsunami flagNo
PAGER alertGREEN
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 31 km (19 mi) from the boundary between the South American and Sandwich 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.

Shaking and impact

The strongest shaking USGS estimates was intensity 3 on the Modified Mercalli scale: weak. 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 5.6 released roughly the energy of 4 kilotons of TNT. That is about 251 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 710,000 times more than this one.

Earthquake history here

Before this earthquake, USGS had recorded 84 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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