M4.5 earthquake near Barcelona, Philippines

A magnitude 4.5 earthquake struck 104 km (65 mi) east-northeast of Barcelona, Philippines on Friday, October 30, 2026 at 10:24 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. The nearest city of a million or more people is Davao, about 237 km (147 mi) away.
Why here?
This earthquake struck about 42 km (26 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 4.5 released roughly the energy of 85 tons of TNT. That is about 5.6 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 32,000,000 times more than this one.
Earthquake history here
Before this earthquake, USGS had recorded 194 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or larger within 300 km (186 mi) since 1900. The strongest:
- M8.1 · 1924 Mindanao, Philippines EarthquakeApril 14, 1924
- M8.0 · 1972 Mindanao, Philippines EarthquakeDecember 2, 1972
- M7.8 · 77 km E of Baculin, PhilippinesMay 25, 1943
Official details, updates and the shaking map: USGS event page.
See every earthquake on October 30, 2026 or earthquakes by day.
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