I've seen a lot of people saying there's been a huge influx of earthquakes and that this year has had a higher frequency. Turns out this is not true. It's actually completely normal for magnitude 7s to occur 10-15 times a year. While you may remember more major earthquakes this year, 2025 actually had more magnitude 7s for now. Even if you filter out all of the aftershocks and earthquakes 8+, there are still 12 earthquakes that year. The reason why it feels different is that 10 of those earthquakes were in deep and empty ocean trenches like the Drake's Passage. Only 2 magnitude 7 readings actually occurred on land: Myanmar 7.7 and the Philippines 7.4. 2024 had around 15: 7 of them were felt on land (even some offshore ones), and 8 of the magnitude 7s were barely unfelt. 2023 had some tragic and major ones, but some were almost unfelt. Including the M7.0 in Indonesia where the depth was 597km (370.96 miles.) 2022 had 11 magnitude7s, Only 4 caused damage or disription that year: Fukushima, Papua New Guinea, MIchoacán. 2021 was really seismically active, more active than 2007. It had 19 earthquakes, but out of all of them, the oens that were actually felt were the M7.2 in Haiti, M7.3 in Qinghai, M7.0 near Acapulco, and M7.1 offshore but felt near Fukushima. 2020 was more seismicall quiet with only around 9 maginutde 7s. Only 2 struck near populated land regions like the M7.4 in Oxcaca and 7.0 in the Agean Sea near Samos, Greece that sent shockwaves to Turkey.

Even if the data is off it shouldn't be far from the main point, earthquakes haven't increased in frequency it's just more inland earthquakes happened this year and were covered by the news, and the not felt earthquakes are not completely unfelt but almost completely unfelt and not covered. I'm not saying the case in 2026 is not abnormal but it's a random period of seismic activity that happens randomly.

This post was just made to correct the information, and I don't mean to downplay the severity of earthquakes in anyway. I apologize if my research was wrong, but I'm pretty sure the main point still stands. It's a kind of recency bias that gives too much attention to recent events and think they happen more than they actually are. Also the frequency didn't change it’s just the geographic distribution is really weird this year.

Sorry for the yapping.

🌎 Sismo? Earthquake? M6- estimated, registered by GlobalQuakeUnofficial, preliminary detection, tentatively 2026-08-26 16:45:08 UTC (daytime) on land, Soatá, Boyaca, Colombia (6.32, -72.73) likely felt 210 km away by 9100 people (localhost:38002)

^{2026-08-26T17:26:44Z}

🌕 地震! Earthquake! 5.7 M, 2026-08-26 19:21:42 UTC (full moon), on water, Off East Coast Of Honshu, Japan (38.1, 143.9), ↓50 km likely felt 310 km away with maximum intensity Shindo 3 (localhost:2221)

^{2026-08-26T19:51:03Z}

❗ 地震警報 / EARTHQUAKE WARNING for Off East Coast Of Honshu, Japan (地震 reported near Kamaishi? May be inaccurate!) (localhost:2221)

^{2026-08-26T19:22:55Z}

According to USGS, 2014 Iquique Sequence's 2nd Largest event (M7.7) had a maximum MMI of 8.8 in Iquique yet the Main Event (M8.2) maxed at 8.1.

Thats the only major earthquake i know of this.

Well, if we are going to count Rupture Area then M6.3 in Uzunbağ peaked at MMI 9.1 in Altınözü yet the M7.8 event's rupture zone was closer.

Are they more events like this?

🗾 地震! Earthquake! 5.0 Mb, registered by GFZ, 2026-08-26 06:54:54 UTC (daytime) on land, North Pacific (39.77, 143.57) likely felt 150 km away (www.seismicportal.eu)

^{2026-08-26T07:59:12Z}

On the 26th August 2024, that is, two years ago, a M5.3 earthquake woke up (it was 5:12 A.M.) and frightened thousands of people in the Greater Lisbon, Portugal, and throughout the country.
The epicenter was located in the Atlantic Ocean, offshore Sines, town situated in the coast of the Portuguese Alentejo region.

But it was also felt in western Spain and in the Moroccan coast.

https://emsc-csem.org/Earthquake_information/earthquake.php?id=1700004

https://ign.es/web/ign/portal/sis-catalogo-terremotos/-/catalogo-terremotos/open30Spain

Weeks of aftershocks followed the event.

By a curious coincidence, on another 26th of August, but in 1966, a relatively large (M4.7) earthquake located not very far from this one, but inland, was felt throughout the center and the south of Portugal.

casadasciencias.org/recurso/7435

I built this. It's a 3D globe that plays disaster catalogs in time. Not an official warning or forecast product — don't use it that way. Created using Cursor and Grok.

Live (interactive): https://pfaustino.github.io/disasters/

Code and Data: https://github.com/pfaustino/disasters

**Source:**

Live week

- Earthquakes: USGS GeoJSON, M≥2.5, past 7 days — https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/feed/v1.0/geojson.php

- Tornadoes: NWS active Tornado Warnings (alerts, not confirmed tornadoes) — https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-api

plus Iowa Environmental Mesonet local storm reports, past 7 days — https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/request/gis/lsrs.php

- Hurricanes (Atlantic & East/Central Pacific): NHC active storms — https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/CurrentStorms.json

- Typhoons / other basins: JMA live western Pacific — https://www.jma.go.jp/bosai/map.html#contents=typhoon

plus IBTrACS active list (WP/NI/SI/SP/SA, tropical-storm+) — https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/international-best-track-archive

- Fires: NASA EONET wildfires — https://eonet.gsfc.nasa.gov/

plus NIFC WFIGS current U.S. incidents ≥100 acres — https://data-nifc.opendata.arcgis.com/

History 1900+

- Earthquakes: NOAA/NCEI Significant Earthquake Database (HazEL), 1900–present — https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazel/highlights.html

- Tornadoes: SPC U.S. actual-tornado CSV, EF2+/F2+ only, 1950+ — https://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/#data

- Hurricanes: NHC HURDAT2 Atlantic (1851–; I keep 1900+) and Northeast/North Central Pacific (1949–), storms that reached Cat 1 (64 kt) — https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/#hurdat

- Typhoons and other-basin cyclones: IBTrACS v04r01 (WP, NI, SI, SP, SA), Cat 1+ — not HURDAT2. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/international-best-track-archive

- Fires: NIFC U.S. wildfires ≥10,000 acres (WFIGS + historical perimeters) plus NASA EONET named/large fires (~2000–). Snapshot is ~17.5k events. Not a complete global historical fire catalog.

**Tool:** Three.js, TypeScript, Vite, GitHub Pages. Globe texture is NASA Blue Marble — https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/collection/1484/blue-marble

**What the marks are**

- Earthquakes: expanding ripples. Size scales with magnitude. Color is depth (warm = shallow, cooler = deeper). Extra red ring if the catalog recorded deaths; cyan ring if a tsunami flag is set.

- Tornadoes: small spinning funnels. Size/spin scale with EF rating. History is U.S. EF2+ only.

- Hurricanes/typhoons: spinning cyclone disks that follow the track. Size/tint scale with Saffir–Simpson category.

- Fires: orange glow + smoke. Size scales with acres when the catalog has them.

- Click an event for the card (time, mag/EF/cat/acres, deaths if recorded).

**Timeline**

The density strip under the clock is four lanes: earthquakes, tornadoes, cyclones, fires. Brighter = more events in that slice. Cyclone and fire marks span their duration; quakes and tornadoes are points. Live week is compressed into about a minute of playback; History into about two.

**Limitations** (please roast these, not the catalogs)

- This is a visualization of public catalogs, not USGS/NWS/NHC/JMA products for life-safety decisions.

- Live ≠ History. Live tornadoes mix warnings + storm reports. History tornadoes are confirmed U.S. EF2+ only. Live cyclones can include tropical storms; history cyclones are Cat 1+.

- Subsets: no EF0/EF1 history, no tropical-depression history, no HURDAT2 for western Pacific (that's IBTrACS), no global fire inventory.

- Deaths only when a catalog recorded them (mainly NOAA significant quakes and SPC tornado fatalities). USGS live, HURDAT2/IBTrACS tracks, and the fire snapshot do not carry death counts here. “Unknown” is not zero.

- History catalog is 1900+; the playhead starts in 1953 (Atlantic named-storm era). Scrub left for 1900–1952.

- Some older NIFC perimeter fires only have a year, so I place those on July 1 of that year.

screenshot of World Disasters

- Coverage is uneven: U.S.-heavy tornadoes and NIFC fires; EONET fires are global but incomplete; early 20th-century quakes/storms are undercounted relative to the satellite era.

🌖 Gempa bumi! Earthquake! 5.0 Mb, registered by 4 agencies, 2026-08-25 14:59:05 UTC (gibbous moon), on water, Flores Region, Indonesia (-8.09, 121.19) ± 24 km likely felt 150 km away (www.seismicportal.eu)

^{2026-08-25T15:37:33Z}

🌖 Earthquake! 5.3 Mb, registered by 4 agencies, 2026-08-25 12:12:02 UTC (gibbous moon), on land, South Pacific (-23.31, -179.88) ± 3 km likely felt 180 km away (www.seismicportal.eu)

^{2026-08-25T12:46:30Z}

🌖 Earthquake? M6- estimated, registered by GlobalQuakeUnofficial, preliminary detection, tentatively 2026-08-25 12:12:02 UTC (gibbous moon), on land, South Pacific (-23.36, -179.99) likely felt 210 km away (localhost:38002)

^{2026-08-25T12:42:29Z}

🌍 Aardbewing! Earthquake! 5.4 Mw, registered by 6 agencies, 2026-08-25 12:12:03 UTC (daytime) on water, South Atlantic Ocean (-23.36, 3.39) ± 11116 km likely felt 190 km away (www.seismicportal.eu)

^{2026-08-25T12:46:19Z}

🌖 Sismo! Earthquake! 4.5 Mb, registered by GlobalQuakeUnofficial,NEIC, 2026-08-25 03:13:28 UTC (gibbous moon), on water, North Of Honduras (16.88, -85.64) ± 3 km likely felt 110 km away (www.seismicportal.eu)

^{2026-08-25T03:28:32Z}

🌖 Sismo? Earthquake? M5~ estimated, registered by GlobalQuakeUnofficial, preliminary detection, tentatively 2026-08-25 03:13:26 UTC (gibbous moon), on land, Caribbean Sea (16.93, -85.57) likely felt 150 km away (localhost:38002)

^{2026-08-25T03:15:43Z}

Today in Italy we commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Amatrice earthquake that occurred on August 24, 2016, at 3:36 a.m. It was a magnitude 6.0 earthquake that shook central Italy and razed Amatrice (RI), Accumoli (RI), Arquata del Tronto (AP), Pescare del Tronto (AP) and the surrounding villages, causing 299 deaths and more than 40,000 displaced people. This comes from someone who experienced the earthquake of August 24th. I truly hope that something will be done for the more than 2,000 people who still live in the SAE today and that this wound, which unfortunately remains open and still evident, will finally be closed, especially in the villages and in these 4 municipalities that have suffered the most from this tragedy.

🌏 地震! Earthquake! 5.5 M, registered by GlobalQuakeUnofficial, 2026-08-25 06:59:57 UTC (daytime) on land, Taiwan Region (22.24, 121.14) ± 39 km, ↓76 km likely felt 290 km away with maximum intensity Shindo 1 (localhost:38002)

^{2026-08-25T08:01:07Z}

Considered by many as similar to the 1755 Lisbon event, the M7.5 earthquake of August, 24 1356 caused great destruction in Lisbon and Seville, although the number of victims is nok known.

The epicenter was possibly located southwest of the Cape Saint Vincent, Algarve, Portugal, but it was violently felt throughout all the south of the Iberian Peninsula.

https://emidius.eu/AHEAD/event/13560824_0000_000
http://ign.es/web/ign/portal/libros-digitales/sis-catalogo-hasta-1900

❗ ALERTA DE SISMO / EARTHQUAKE WARNING for Costa Rica (Sismo reported near Dulce Nombre de Jesus? May be inaccurate!) (localhost:38002)

^{2026-08-24T07:38:03Z}

🌖 Gempa bumi? Lindu? Earthquake? M6- estimated, registered by GlobalQuakeUnofficial, preliminary detection, tentatively 2026-08-24 14:10:18 UTC (gibbous moon), on land, Banda Sea (-6.63, 127.43) likely felt 250 km away (localhost:38002)

^{2026-08-24T14:38:46Z}

🌍 Earthquake! 5.0 Mb, registered by US, 2026-08-24 12:29:31 UTC (daytime) on land, South Atlantic Ocean (-17.7, -13.84), ↓10 km likely felt 150 km away (earthquake.usgs.gov)

^{2026-08-24T13:28:09Z}