July 14, 1885 Earthquake: Bangladesh

Name: July 14, 1885 Earthquake: Bangladesh
Start: 1885-07-14
Location: Bangladesh

July 14, 1885 · M6.9 · 75 deaths

A magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck Bangladesh on July 14, 1885. It killed 75 people.

Map

Where it struck, with the other significant earthquakes within 200 km. Circles are sized and colored by magnitude; select one for its page.

The earthquake

Date: July 14, 1885
Place: Bangladesh
Magnitude: 6.9 (Mw)
Magnitude scales: Mw 6.9 · Unspecified 7
Intensity: VII, very strong shaking, on the Modified Mercalli scale
Tsunami: None recorded
Epicenter: 24.800° N, 89.500° E
Country: Bangladesh
Region: South and Southeast Asia and Indian Ocean

Mw: moment magnitude, based on the slip on the fault and the area that slipped. Unspecified: the method was not stated in the published sources. NCEI’s headline magnitude is the best of these for the earthquake.

The toll

Deaths: 75
Damage: Moderate (about $1 to $5 million)
Houses destroyed: Very many (over 1,000)

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.

From Wikipedia

The 1885 Bengal earthquake, also known as the Manikganj earthquake occurred on 14 July in Manikganj.

The damaging earthquake caused widespread destruction in Dhaka. Its epicentre was about 60 kilometres from Dhaka city - and was estimated to be 7.0 on the moment magnitude scale. The earthquake was felt throughout Bengal Province extending westwards into Chota Nagpur and Bihar, northwards into Sikkim and Bhutan, as well eastwards into Assam, Manipur and Burma.

Text from Wikipedia, “1885 Bengal earthquake”, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Quoted as written; the full article has the rest.

What the record says

NCEI’s account, from the sources it cites.

The felt areas extended in the entire northeast India and Myanmar. (reference 11454)

The 1885 Bengal earthquake, whose epicentre lay within the country, caused loss of life and huge destruction to houses in northern Bangladesh (i.e. Rangpur, Bogra, Sherpur, Jamalpur and Mymensingh). (reference #12584)

Sources NCEI cites

The publications NCEI lists for this record. The numbers match the “reference #” notes in its account above.

#11454 Alam, Edris, Dale Dominey-Howes (2016). A catalogue of earthquakes between 810BC and 2012 for the Bay of Bengal. Natural Hazards. DOI:10.1007/s11069-016-2174-7
#12584 Alam, Edris (2019). Importance of long-term earthquake, tsunami and tropical cyclone data for disaster risk reduction in Bangladesh. Progress in Disaster Science, 100019. DOI:10.1016/j.pdisas.2019.100019

Other significant earthquakes nearby

Within 200 km, the deadliest first.

Significant earthquakes of 1885 The 1800s Recent earthquakes near here This day in weather history

Sources

Significant earthquakes from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Global Historical Hazard Database, cited as NCEI/WDS, doi:10.7289/V5PN93H7. Public domain. Read 2026-10-01. NCEI earthquake 10464.