EARTHQUAKEM4.8

M4.8 earthquake near Jiufen, Taiwan

Map: the earthquake near Jiufen, Taiwan, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 4.8 earthquake struck 33 km (21 mi) southeast of Jiufen, Taiwan on Sunday, November 1, 2026 at 08:20 UTC, at a depth of 119 km (74 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 Taipei, about 53 km (33 mi) away.

5 people reported feeling it to USGS “Did You Feel It?”.

MagnitudeM4.8
Depth119 km (74 mi)
Time (UTC)Nov 1 08:20
Location24.88°N 122.06°E
Nearest townJiufen · 33 km
Energy239 tons TNT
Tsunami flagNo
Felt reports5
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Why here?

This earthquake struck right along the boundary between the Eurasian and Okinawa 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 119 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.

How strong was it?

Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step releases about 32 times more energy. This magnitude 4.8 released roughly the energy of 239 tons of TNT. That is about 16 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 11,000,000 times more than this one.

Earthquake history here

Before this earthquake, USGS had recorded 276 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 November 1, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

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