M4.6 earthquake near Mazo Cruz, Peru

A magnitude 4.6 earthquake struck 33 km (21 mi) northeast of Mazo Cruz, Peru on Friday, October 30, 2026 at 22:46 UTC, at a depth of 195 km (121 mi), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. At this intermediate depth, shaking spreads out before it reaches the surface. The nearest city of a million or more people is La Paz, about 142 km (88 mi) away.
Why here?
This earthquake struck 195 km (121 mi) down, about 382 km (237 mi) from the nearest plate boundary on the surface. Quakes this deep happen inside old ocean plate that has sunk far into the mantle at a subduction zone, long after it dove beneath its neighbor. Their great depth spreads the shaking over a wide area but usually keeps it gentle at the surface.
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 4.6 released roughly the energy of 120 tons of TNT. That is about 7.9 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 22,000,000 times more than this one.
Earthquake history here
Before this earthquake, USGS had recorded 45 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or larger within 300 km (186 mi) since 1900. The strongest:
- M7.7 · 50 km N of Sandia, PeruAugust 15, 1963
- M7.6 · 51 km SW of Punta de Bombón, PeruJuly 7, 2001
- M7.2 · 10 km W of Azángaro, PeruMay 26, 2022
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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