India Earthquake Trends: Hundreds a Year, Few Big Ones

A plate from R. D. Oldham's 1899 report on the 1897 Assam earthquake
A plate from R. D. Oldham’s 1899 Geological Survey of India memoir on the 1897 Assam earthquake. Photo: R. D. Oldham via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
No clear riseUpdated 18 October 2026

Trend summary

  • India’s seismology centre counted 575 earthquakes on Indian territory in 2024, after 605 in 2023. Most are small and cause no damage.
  • From January 2020 to June 2025 it logged 3,032 quakes inside India, the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. Assam, Himachal Pradesh and Maharashtra had the most.
  • Better sensors explain part of the counts. The national network grew from about 80 observatories in 2014 to 168 in 2025.
  • The deadliest quake on Indian soil since 2007 was Sikkim in September 2011, with more than 110 deaths in India. The government says the data show no definite rising pattern.
575Quakes on Indian territory, 2024
3,032Quakes in India, Jan 2020 to Jun 2025
168Seismic observatories, 2025 (80 in 2014)
59-60%Share of land prone to quakes (2025)

What the numbers show

The National Center for Seismology (NCS) counted 576 earthquakes on Indian territory in 2020, 521 in 2021, 405 in 2022, 605 in 2023 and 575 in 2024. Between January 2020 and 22 March 2025 the total was 2,768. Assam led with 337, followed by Himachal Pradesh (285), Maharashtra (249), Uttarakhand (222) and Manipur (220) (Lok Sabha answer, March 2025). Across the much wider 0-40°N, 60-100°E reporting grid, NCS reported 80,029 quakes from January 2020 to June 2025, and 3,032 inside India, the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea (PIB, August 2025).

Monthly counts in 2026 swing widely. NCS located 64 quakes inside India in January (NCS), 136 in February, when a cluster hit Sikkim (NCS), and 123 in June (NCS). Damaging quakes are rare. The 2011 Sikkim quake killed more than 110 people in India (ReliefWeb). The 2016 Manipur quake killed at least 10 and damaged 4,184 houses (NIDM). Delhi’s M 4.0 quake on 17 February 2025 was only 5 km deep, near Dhaula Kuan (Rajya Sabha answer).

What is driving it

Geography sets the baseline. Zone V, the highest hazard zone, covers Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, the north-east, Kutch and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Rajya Sabha answer, 2024). The government says nearly 59-60% of India’s land area is prone to earthquakes (PIB, February 2025).

Rising counts partly reflect better listening. The network grew from about 80 observatories in 2014 to 168 in 2025 (PIB), and it can now detect quakes down to magnitude 3.0 (Lok Sabha answer, 2023). The ministry told Parliament in 2023 that the data show no definite pattern of rising earthquake activity (Lok Sabha answer).

Recent cases

  • 5 August 2026: NCS issued a preliminary report on an M 5.4 earthquake in Upper Siang, Arunachal Pradesh (NCS).
  • 5 June 2026: An M 5.0 quake struck Chamba, Himachal Pradesh. NCS located 123 earthquakes inside India that month (NCS).
  • 6 February 2026: An M 4.5 quake hit Gyalshing, Sikkim, near Pelling, followed by an M 4.6 nearby on 26 February. February’s count inside India reached 136 (NCS).

Press releases and official reports, 2023–2026

Up to five key releases a year for the last four years, newest first. Most come from Government of India ministries through the Press Information Bureau (PIB), national agencies such as NCRB, the Reserve Bank of India and the National Center for Seismology, and state governments; a few news reports and data analyses are included where they are the clearest public record of an event. Releases from 2007–2022 are in the expandable list after 2023.

2026

2025

2024

2023

View 20 years of major Indian earthquake press releases (2007–2026)25 more from 2007–2022, up to five a year, newest first

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

Many years list fewer than five items, and some have none yet. Older Government of India releases are hard to find at their original addresses, and we only list items we could open and check. We are still adding to these lists. Where a page shows no date, the date comes from the release address or the publisher’s own index.

Photo list

A church in Shillong before and after the 1897 earthquake
A church in Shillong before and after the great Assam earthquake of 12 June 1897, one of the largest ever recorded in India. Photo: unknown photographer via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
A relief truck being unloaded from a US Air Force C-5 aircraft
A truck for relief after the 2001 Gujarat (Bhuj) earthquake being unloaded on its way to Ahmedabad. Photo: US Air Force via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Related on ROR Labs

How this page is built. Figures come from the official statistical releases linked above; where agencies publish provisional numbers we say so, because they are revised. Many Indian statistics are compiled state by state and published a year or two late (NCRB’s accident report for 2024 came out in 2026), so we say which year each figure covers. Large numbers are written in international form, with lakh (100,000) and crore (10 million) in brackets where Indian sources use them. Photos are public-domain or Creative Commons images credited in each caption; file photos are illustrative and are not from the events described unless the caption says so. This page tracks trends and is not personal safety, medical, legal or financial advice.