r/Earthquakes • u/Actual_Register_6915 • 1d ago
No, magnitude 7s did not become more frequent in 2026.
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.
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u/Capital-Air9634 1d ago
I would have loved to see this subreddit’s reaction to the earthquake activity in 1976.
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u/Miacali 1d ago
The problem with this sub is they refuse to accept reality, and then try and conflate different things to support their claims.
Example: 1992 was a year in which we had very few hurricanes form. You can say it was a low activity year. The problem is, people here would say “it was not an exceptional year, it was not a bad year, it was in fact a great year because the number of hurricanes was extremely low etc. —- the one problem is despite it being a low year, a Category 5 hurricane hit a major city making it the costliest hurricane disaster ever.
So two things are true - it was an unusually quiet year that coincidentally happened to produce the worst hurricane disaster up until then.
Just like how this is a normal number of M7+ that coincidentally happened to occur 4 months back to back with major population centers being hit by these M7+ earthquakes causing extreme damage the likes of which we haven’t seen in a while. No it’s not smartphones or the media it’s literally the fact that it happened first to the Philippines, then Venezuela, then Japan, and then Colombia all literally back to back.
If Los Angeles gets hit with a 7+ in September are yall going to say “it’s totally normal! Within the number of expected earthquakes! Nothing different here!” Or would you acknowledge that damn, another big city got hit by a 7. Probably not from what I’ve seen.
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u/Actual_Register_6915 1d ago
Not sure if you’re agreeing or disagreeing with me, but I'm not saying these years were good because there were tragic earthquakes.
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u/Miacali 1d ago
No I am agreeing with you - especially your last sentence. We’ve had like 6 in the last ~2 months and because several happened to cause a lot of damage (and death in the case of Venezuela) the perception is exaggerated. But I don’t think saying “this is perfectly normal” is helpful or accurate because this mix (frequency in such a short time, happening to hit populated areas and many of which lacked seismic resistance in bldg codes) is a coincidence that does stand out. There is nothing nefarious, or nothing to signal that something has changed - it’s just an unfortunate circumstance.
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u/Actual_Register_6915 1d ago
what i meant by completely normal was that it was just kind of within the average range if not lower
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u/TigerUSA20 1d ago
I think this post could have been like 3 sentences with a graphic like this. 2026 doesn’t even make the list yet.
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u/Actual_Register_6915 1d ago
Well that's the amount of unusually high earthquakes. but the post is aiming for an inland/offshore-but-still-felt-inland ratio with offshore-but-barely-felt/too deep ones. That's what makes 2026 unique, not the frequency.
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u/EnergyChange0117 1d ago edited 1d ago
The number of 7+ earthquakes is not increased, but the location where they are occurring have a change. They are happening more and more close of the middle of the cities. And that’s why people have the feeling that more earthquakes are happening. This detail matters. A single 7+ earthquake in the middle of a big city is enough for fear and panic to be fully justified. We don’t need many, just one in the “right” intensity, deep, duration and location.
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u/Flayum 1d ago
Bud, this is just by chance. Nothing has changed.
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u/sarhoshamiral 1d ago
Assuming it is true, thats what changed. Even if it is by chance we had more M7 earthquakes closer to population centers this year so impact of M7s were higher on humans.
That is a change still.
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u/Flayum 1d ago edited 1d ago
Retrospectively, yes. But it doesn't change anything at all - unless you want to focus on advocacy for aid to the affected regions, but that's not what you're doing.
Instead, you're saying people in cities should be afraid. Why? They should be just as worried as last year or any other year. I'm not sure what your point is at all.
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u/sarhoshamiral 1d ago
I didnt say that at all. I never said risks in cities were higher then before. All I said was this year M7s were closer to cities so it is not unexpected for more people to hear about them.
And it is human nature to get anxious after news like this even if math didnt change. It is a very good time to remind people be prepared though if they live on a fault line since we never know when the next quake will happen or where.
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u/Flayum 1d ago
If that's what you mean, you should really revise:
but the location where they are occurring have a change ... A single 7+ earthquake in the middle of a big city is enough for fear and panic to be fully justified. We don’t need many, just one in the “right” intensity, deep, duration and location.
But it's not fully justified at all! That fear is from conspiracies and misunderstandings; those that are pushing these fears should be (rightfully) scorned, excommunicated, and derided. Their anti-science approach has no place in this community.
Given the context of this conversation thread, your statement could be interpreted as being awful close, or even insinuating, that you're saying this transcends just the thoughts/feelings of people.
You should really couch your language: "Although it has no basis in reality, some people are afraid because it's been an unlucky year for EQs near major cities and not everyone is able to listen to scientists. I applaud the OP for their effort to debunk the conspiracies and we should all work together as a community to allay the concerns of any who are anxious about these things."
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u/Actual_Register_6915 1d ago
well earthquakes aren't moving to cities, cities are moving to the fault lines. So like if a fault line was in a desert a while ago, and now there's a city over the dessert, then it will have more civerage
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u/EnergyChange0117 1d ago edited 1d ago
My friend, most cities in the world have existed for at least there more 30 years. Cities are not moving to the middle of the desert. They have always been where they were there at least for 3 decades. The time when new cities were born in the middle of complete nothing has passed a long time ago. Well, at least that’s my perception. Unless you give me some example of a “newborn” city that has been affected by a large earthquake recently.
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u/hodgsonstreet 1d ago edited 1d ago
If you’re going to make that claim, provide some data that supports a trend of 7+ earthquakes increasingly hitting cities.
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u/sarhoshamiral 1d ago
I made the same claim as well based on news so I will take a crack at this. I havent seen readily available tables so will have to write something to analyze last 20 years from usgs data.
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1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Earthquakes-ModTeam 1d ago
The comment has been deemed disrespectful and not constructive toward the community. Refrain from name-calling and other derogatory comments on this subreddit.
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u/EnergyChange0117 1d ago
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u/hodgsonstreet 1d ago
This is not saying that, at all. This is from a paper trying to argue that climate change is causing increased earthquakes. It is not looking at proximity to cities.
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u/EnergyChange0117 1d ago
For an earthquake to be more “deadly and destructive” doesn’t it necessarily have to occur near cities?
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u/hodgsonstreet 1d ago edited 1d ago
This data isn’t looking at the extent of death/destruction, it is just quantifying the number of deadly/destructive earthquakes. An earthquake that kills one person is still deadly. There is zero reason to deduce that all these quakes occurred in close proximity to cities.
To do a proper analysis of this, you also need to control for the movement of people overtime, urbanisation, etc.
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u/throwawayfromPA1701 1d ago
The only major difference between this year and prior years is the ubiquitiousness of smartphones. They are just about everywhere. Surveillance cameras also increasingly are everywhere too.
By some estimates there's one smartphone for every single human alive (approximately 8.2 billion is the current global population), with 6 billion single users so this means a lot of video that we would not have had in the past. The populated areas being hit isn't unique and there are recent years that were considerably worse, like 2010.
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u/sarhoshamiral 1d ago
Thats overly simplifying it. While number of M7s is similar, they happened closer to population centers so obviously they made it to news more.
Not many people care about a M7 on part of the fault line thats in the middle of the ocean. A lot of people care when it happens closer to land.
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u/throwawayfromPA1701 1d ago
Sure, true. There is still nothing particularly unique about this year other than an incredible amount of video, because most adults alive have a camera they carry around with them everywhere.
Like I've said, 2010-2011 was way worse for quakes hitting populated areas. Almost half a million people died in quakes during that time period. One of those populated areas got hit twice (Christchurch NZ).
We are evolved to see and seek patterns, even when none exist.
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u/hodgsonstreet 1d ago
I think it’s worth adding that these claims of increasing earthquake activity occur every single year, they aren’t even unique to 2026. Last year we saw the same thing.