EARTHQUAKEM6.1

M6.1 earthquake near Hasaki, Japan

Map: the earthquake near Hasaki, Japan, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck 144 km (89 mi) southeast of Hasaki, Japan on Friday, November 6, 2026 at 10:39 UTC, at a depth of 29 km (18 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 Kawasaki, about 228 km (142 mi) away.

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

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

MagnitudeM6.1
Depth29 km (18 mi)
Time (UTC)Nov 6 10:39
Location34.97°N 142.12°E
Nearest townHasaki · 144 km
Energy21 kilotons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+0
Tsunami flagNo
PAGER alertGREEN
Felt reports38
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Why here?

This earthquake struck right along 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 normal-fault earthquake: the crust was being stretched, and one block dropped down relative to the other.

Shaking and impact

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 6.1 released roughly the energy of 21 kilotons of TNT, about as much as the Hiroshima atomic bomb. That is about 1,400 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 130,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 25 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 249 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 6, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

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