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M5.6 earthquake Banda Sea

A magnitude 5.6 earthquake struck in the Banda Sea on Sun, Sep 20, 1981, 6:00 PM GMT+8 (10:00 UTC), 173 km (107 mi) below the surface.

A larger quake followed: M6.1 268 km NE of Lospalos, Timor Leste. This one was a foreshock.

Lospalos forecast

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The earthquake

Magnitude: 5.6 (mb, body-wave), moderate
Magnitude from: USGS National Earthquake Information Center
Local time: Sun, Sep 20, 1981, 6:00 PM GMT+8
UTC: 1981-09-20 10:00:02 UTC
Depth: 172.6 km (107.2 mi), intermediate-depth
Epicenter: 6.794° S, 129.523° E
Tsunami flag: No
Status: Reviewed by a seismologist

Magnitude estimates

Different scales measure different things and differ by a few tenths. The USGS marks one as preferred, and it is the one this page uses.

Mag.	Scale	Computed by	Notes
5.6	mb, body-wave	USGS National Earthquake Information Center	Preferred · Reviewed · 17 stations
5.37	Mw, moment	ISC-GEM global catalog	Final · ±0.1
5.4	Mwc, centroid moment	Global CMT project	Preliminary

Did you feel it?

No one has reported feeling this quake to the USGS.

Nearest places

Distance and direction from each place to the epicenter, with its forecast.

Nearby

Within 100 km, magnitude 2.6 and up: 7 in the 60 days after this one and 4 in the 30 days before it.

After

Before

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Sources

From the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program and its partner networks, event usp0001g00 (also filed as gcmtb092081c, gcmt19810920100002, iscgem611823). Read Thu, Oct 1, 2026, 12:01 PM UTC.