M8.2 Earthquake 2017 Tehuantepec, Mexico Earthquake, Sep 7, 2017

Map

Where this earthquake was located, with the others nearby. Select one for its page.

The earthquake

Magnitude: 8.2 (Mww, W-phase moment), great
Magnitude from: USGS National Earthquake Information Center
Local time: Thu, Sep 7, 2017, 11:49 PM CDT
UTC: 2017-09-08 04:49:19 UTC
Depth: 47.4 km (29.4 mi), shallow
Epicenter: 15.022° N, 93.899° W
Region: Mexico
Felt reports: 2,651
Strongest shaking: VII, very strong shaking
PAGER alert: Red
Tsunami flag: Yes: a large quake in an oceanic region
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
8.2	Mww, W-phase moment	USGS National Earthquake Information Center	Preferred · Reviewed · ±0.058 · 29 stations
8.23	Mw, moment	ISC-GEM global catalog	Final · ±0.1
8.0	Mi	NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center	Reviewed · 14 stations
7.8	Mi	NOAA National Tsunami Warning Center	Reviewed · 11 stations
8.29	Mw, moment	USGS finite-fault model	Finite-fault model · Reviewed

Deaths and damage

From NOAA NCEI’s Significant Earthquake Database (record 10266), matched to this event by time and place.

Deaths: 98
Injuries: 251
Damage: $4 billion
Houses destroyed: 47,468
Houses damaged: 94,027

Where the literature gives no number, NCEI records a description on a scale of 1 to 4, printed here in its words. Damage is in millions of US dollars of the year of the event, not adjusted for inflation.

NOAA’s full record of this earthquake The tsunami it caused

From Wikipedia

The 2017 Chiapas earthquake struck at 23:49 CDT on 7 September (local time; 04:49 on the 8th UTC) in the Gulf of Tehuantepec off the southern coast of Mexico near the state of Chiapas, approximately 87 kilometres (54 mi) southwest of Pijijiapan (alternately, 101 kilometres (63 mi) south-southwest of Tres Picos), with a Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). The moment magnitude was estimated to be Mw 8.2.

The earthquake caused all of Mexico City to tremble, prompting people to evacuate after the early warning system was triggered. It also generated a tsunami with waves 1.75 metres (5 ft 9 in) above tide level; and tsunami alerts were issued for surrounding areas. Mexico's president called it the strongest earthquake recorded in the country in a century. It was also the second strongest recorded in the country's history, behind the magnitude 8.6 earthquake in 1787, the largest recorded globally in 2017 and the largest earthquake worldwide since the 2015 Illapel earthquake.

Text from Wikipedia, “2017 Chiapas earthquake”, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Quoted as written; the full article has the rest.

The article is about the earthquake NOAA’s record describes, matched to this one by date, place and magnitude.

Wikidata records: 98 deaths. These are counts entered by Wikidata’s editors; they may differ from the official count, and this page never adds them to another figure. Q38982786, CC0.

What happened

The USGS’s account of the effects of this earthquake.

At least 78 people killed and 250 injured in Oaxaca; 16 killed in Chiapas; 4 killed in Tabasco. Thousands of houses and hundreds of schools damaged or destroyed and water service disrupted in Chiapas and Oaxaca. Extensive damage at Juchitan. Some damage in Veracruz. About 1.84 million homes lost electricity in southern Mexico. Windows shattered at Aeropuerto Internacional Benito Juarez, Mexico City. Unconfirmed report of one person killed in Guatemala. A destructive tsunami occurred along the coast of Chiapas, Mexico.

From the USGS event page for us2000ahv0. U.S. Geological Survey text and figures are in the public domain.

Tsunami

The USGS flags a quake this large in an oceanic region. The flag does not mean a tsunami happened; the tsunami warning centers decide that, and their messages are below when they issued any.

Current tsunami warnings: tsunami.gov. Warnings in force in the US also appear on our alerts pages.

Shaking

The USGS ShakeMap: shaking estimated from seismic stations and the quake’s size, on the Modified Mercalli intensity scale.

Strongest estimated: VII, very strong shaking
Peak ground acceleration: 30.4% of gravity
Peak ground velocity: 3.7 cm/s
Map: Automatic

USGS ShakeMap: estimated shaking intensity around the epicenter — Estimated shaking intensity. Map: USGS ShakeMap.

Did you feel it?

2,651 people reported to the USGS what they felt; the strongest reported shaking was IX, violent shaking.

Estimated impact

The USGS PAGER system estimates deaths and economic losses from the shaking and the population and buildings exposed to it.

Alert level: Red: extensive damage and deaths probable, an international response

Deaths: estimated chance of each range
Range	Chance
Under 1	Under 1%
1 to 10	2%
10 to 100	12%
100 to 1,000	30%
1,000 to 10,000	34%
10,000 to 100,000	17%
100,000 to 10,000,000	4%

Economic losses: estimated chance of each range
Range, million USD	Chance
Under 1	Under 1%
1 to 10	Under 1%
10 to 100	5%
100 to 1,000	19%
1,000 to 10,000	35%
10,000 to 100,000	28%
100,000 to 10,000,000	13%

Fault motion and ground failure

How the rock slipped, from the moment tensor, and the USGS estimate of landslides and liquefaction.

Faulting: Normal
Moment magnitude: 8.2 Mww
Nodal plane 1: Strike 164°, dip 20°, rake -61°
Nodal plane 2: Strike 314°, dip 73°, rake -100°
Landslide alert: Orange
Liquefaction alert: Red

Rupture model

How far the rock on each part of the fault slid, from a model fitted to seismic waves recorded around the world.

USGS finite-fault model: slip on the fault plane, in meters — Slip on the fault plane, in meters, from the USGS finite-fault model (moment magnitude 8.29). Model: USGS.

Tectonic setting

Why earthquakes happen here, from the USGS tectonic summary.

The September 8th, 2017, M 8.2 earthquake offshore Chiapas, Mexico, occurred as the result of normal faulting at an intermediate depth. Focal mechanism solutions for the earthquake indicate slip occurred on either a fault dipping very shallowly towards the southwest, or on steeply dipping fault striking NW-SE. At the location of this event, the Cocos plate converges with North America at a rate of approximately 76 mm/yr, in a northeast direction. The Cocos plate begins its subduction beneath Central America at the Middle America Trench, just over 100 km to the southwest of this earthquake. The location, depth, and normal-faulting mechanism of this earthquake indicate that it is likely an intraplate event, within the subducting Cocos slab, rather than on the shallower megathrust plate boundary interface.

While commonly plotted as points on maps, earthquakes of this size are more appropriately described as slip over a larger fault area. Normal-faulting events of the size of the September 8th, 2017 earthquake are typically about 200x50 km (length x width).

Over the preceding century, the region within 250 km of the hypocenter of the September 8th, 2017 earthquake has experienced 8 other M 7+ earthquakes. Most occurred in the subduction zone to the southeast of the September 8 event, near the Mexico-Guatemala border, and none were larger than M 7.5. The largest, a M 7.4 thrust faulting earthquake offshore Guatemala in November 2012, resulted in at least 48 fatalities and over 150 injuries, and significant damage near the coast.

From the USGS event page for us2000ahv0. U.S. Geological Survey text and figures are in the public domain.

USGS summary poster

How well it is located

Reviewed by a seismologist.

Location uncertainty: About 6.2 km horizontally, 3.7 km in depth
Magnitude uncertainty: ±0.06
Depth from: From location
Station coverage gap: 22°
Stations used: 288

Nearest places

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

Nearby

Within 100 km, magnitude 5.2 and up: 17 in the 60 days after this one and 0 in the 30 days before it.

After

Sources

From the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program and its partner networks, event us2000ahv0 (also filed as at00ovy2q7, pt17251000, iscgem611600536). Read Thu, Oct 1, 2026, 6:33 PM UTC.