Earthquake science written clearly — and a live feed when you need it.
Deep-dive articles on how quakes work, what history teaches, and how to stay prepared. Plus a free real-time USGS monitor.
Original explainers and event coverage from Oliver Chen — written for curious readers, not seismologists.
On 10 August 2026 a Mw 7.4 earthquake ruptured about 110 km beneath Chocó, near San José del Palmar — Colombia’s strongest quake in a decade.
At least 294 dead, thousands injured, and damage from Cali to Pereira. Not a coastal megathrust: an intermediate-depth slab rupture that spread severe shaking across western and central Colombia.
Read the full article →Furniture straps, emergency radio, water storage, headlamp, and fire extinguisher — five high-leverage items to buy and install before the shaking starts.
A Mw 7.4 intermediate-depth quake near San José del Palmar killed at least 294. Wide damage from Cali to Pereira — and a lesson in slab earthquakes.
Japanese alerts use shindo (0–7); USGS ShakeMaps use Mercalli (I–X+). Both measure local shaking — not magnitude. Here is how to read both.
Wastewater injection, geothermal, mining, and reservoirs can nudge stressed faults into slipping. Here is how induced seismicity works — and how to spot it on a live feed.
Strike-slip, normal, and thrust faults are the three basic ways rock slips. Here is how fault type shapes rupture, shaking, and tsunami risk.
A ShakeMap shows where the ground actually shook — not just where the epicenter was. Here is how to read the colors, intensity scale, and first-hour revisions.
A shallow magnitude 6 can devastate a city while a deep magnitude 8 barely cracks plaster. Here is how hypocenter depth controls shaking — and how to read it on the live feed.
Magnitude measures the earthquake at the source. Intensity measures shaking where you stand. Here is why a 5.2 can rattle your building while a distant 7.0 barely registers.
A 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck Puerto Madero, Chiapas at 10 km depth on July 17-18, 2026. Tsunami warnings, 4,000+ evacuated, aftershocks up to M6.0 shook Central America and Mexico.
In 2011, 70% of Urayasu city turned to liquid during the Tōhoku earthquake — without a single wave of tsunami. Liquefaction is the earthquake effect nobody sees coming. Here's the science, the history, and why Japan's cities are especially at risk.
From Haicheng and Parkfield to Japan’s prediction program: how decades of earthquake prediction research unfolded, why short-term forecasts failed, and what seismology does instead.
Japan's government has modeled a M6.9 earthquake directly under the capital: up to 23,000 deaths, ¥95 trillion in economic damage, and 3.5 million people unable to get home. Here's what the scenario looks like — and why it's harder to plan for than Nankai.
Japan's government puts the probability of an M8-9 earthquake along the Nankai Trough at 70–80% within the next 30 years. The last full rupture was 1707. Here's what happens when it breaks — and why Japan has spent decades preparing for it.
In 1985, a Mexico City earthquake collapsed only mid-rise buildings while skyscrapers and small buildings stood untouched. The reason is resonance — and it explains how buildings actually fail, and how modern engineering fights back.
In 2004, 227,898 people died in an Indian Ocean tsunami — with no warning because no system existed yet. Today, a global network of DART buoys can detect a wave crossing the open ocean and alert coastal governments in minutes. Here's how it works.
At 11:07 PM on February 13, 2021, a M7.3 shook the Fukushima coast — officially an aftershock of the 2011 Tōhoku M9.1, arriving a decade later. 950,000 homes lost power. Cooling water leaked at Fukushima Daiichi. Here's what it revealed.
On June 24, three separate earthquakes hit three continents in a single day. June 2026 has logged four M7+ events — double the monthly average. Here's what the data says, and why the planet hasn't actually changed its behavior.
On June 24, 2026, a Mw 7.2 and Mw 7.5 earthquake struck northern Venezuela 40 seconds apart — the strongest sequence in over 125 years. At least 164 dead, and a lesson in what seismologists call a doublet.
At 5:04 PM on October 17, 1989, a M6.9 earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay Area during the World Series live broadcast. 63 people died — 42 in a single highway collapse. The first major earthquake caught on live television.
A M7.9 earthquake on the Longmenshan fault killed over 87,000 people. The collapse of schools built with shoddy construction — and the grief the government would not permit — defined its legacy as much as the disaster itself.
In 16 seconds on January 17, 1995, a M6.9 earthquake killed 6,434 people and left 300,000 homeless. Pre-1981 buildings collapsed while newer ones stood. Fires spread through a city with no water to fight them.
At 5:20 AM on December 28, 1908, a M7.1 earthquake struck the Strait of Messina and simultaneously destroyed two cities. Between 75,000 and 200,000 people died — and the Imperial Russian Navy led the rescue.
The epicenter was 400 km away. But Mexico City sits on ancient lake sediment that amplified the waves 50x — selectively collapsing mid-rise buildings and killing at least 10,000 people.
At 3:42 AM on July 28, 1976, Tangshan was asleep. Twenty-three seconds later, 85% of the city was gone. At least 242,000 dead — and China refused all outside help.
On All Saints' Day 1755, Lisbon was struck by an earthquake, a tsunami, and five days of fire. Up to 60,000 died — and the disaster forced Enlightenment philosophy to confront the question it had been avoiding.
On December 26, 2004, a M9.1 rupture off the coast of Sumatra sent waves across the Indian Ocean at jet speed. Fourteen countries. No warning system. The deadliest tsunami in recorded history.
At 11:58 AM on September 1, 1923, a M7.9 earthquake struck beneath Sagami Bay and destroyed Tokyo and Yokohama. Over 100,000 people died — most of them not from the shaking, but from the firestorm that followed.
A M9.2 earthquake on Good Friday 1964 shook Alaska for 4 to 5 minutes, launched tsunamis as far as Antarctica, and permanently reshaped coastal towns. Only 139 people died — here's why, and how this quake changed Earth science.
When a fault ruptures, energy radiates in different wave types — each travelling at a different speed. Understanding P and S waves is the key to understanding how earthquake early warning systems work.
On April 25, 2015, a M7.8 earthquake struck the Kathmandu Valley — killing nearly 9,000 people, destroying 500,000 homes, and exposing how urban geology amplifies seismic risk in developing nations.
After a major earthquake, emergency services can take 72 hours or more to reach everyone. Here's exactly what to stockpile — and why each item earns its place in the kit.
Invisible at sea, devastating at shore. Here's the science behind how a submarine earthquake displaces the ocean and turns into one of nature's most destructive forces — and how warning systems try to get ahead of it.
Base isolators, dampers, flexible frames — modern earthquake engineering is a fascinating field. Here's how architects and engineers design structures to sway without collapsing when the ground moves.
The Haiti earthquake was M7.0 — smaller than dozens of quakes that cause little damage. Yet it killed over 200,000 people. The reason has less to do with geology than with poverty, politics, and construction quality.
Every earthquake on Tremr's map is a product of the same force: tectonic plates moving. Here's how the plates work, what drives them, and why some boundaries are far more dangerous than others.
After a major earthquake, smaller quakes can continue for months. Here's why — and how scientists use Omori's Law to estimate how long an aftershock sequence will last.
The earthquake lasted less than a minute. The fire that followed burned for three days. The 1906 disaster killed thousands, levelled a city — and permanently changed how America builds, plans, and thinks about seismic risk.
Seconds of warning can save lives. Here's how systems like Japan's and California's ShakeAlert detect the first wave of an earthquake and send alerts before the dangerous shaking arrives.
A 1,000-kilometre fault off the coast of Washington, Oregon, and California has been locked and loading since 1700. When it goes, it will be one of the largest disasters in North American history.
On March 11, 2011, a M9.1 earthquake struck Japan — triggering a tsunami, the Fukushima disaster, and nearly 20,000 deaths. The full story of the earthquake that changed Japan forever.
Tens of millions of people live directly above one of the most studied fault systems on Earth. What does that actually mean for daily life? How likely is the "Big One"? And what should Californians actually be doing to prepare?
Every earthquake you see on Tremr was detected by a network of instruments buried in the ground around the world. Here's how those sensors work, how they communicate, and how a wiggle on a graph becomes the magnitude number you see on your screen.
On May 22, 1960, southern Chile shook with a force the world had never measured before. Magnitude 9.5. The resulting tsunami crossed the Pacific and killed people as far away as Japan. This is the story of the earthquake that reset what we thought was possible.
Nearly 90% of all earthquakes happen in one zone — a horseshoe of tectonic fire encircling the Pacific Ocean. Here's what it is, why it exists, and why it shows up as a permanent ring of dots on Tremr's map.
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