Mexico Earthquake Trends: Record Counts, Rare Disasters

Collapsed buildings on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec after the September 2017 earthquake
Damage on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec after the magnitude 8.2 earthquake of 7 September 2017, photographed the next day. Photo: Presidencia de la República Mexicana via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.
More quakes loggedUpdated 24 October 2026

Trend summary

  • Mexico’s National Seismological Service (SSN) located 39,871 earthquakes in 2025, the highest yearly count in its recent series. Almost all were small: 23,511 were between magnitude 3.0 and 3.9.
  • The deadliest recent year was 2017. The M8.2 Tehuantepec quake of 7 September killed 99 people, mostly in Oaxaca, and the M7.1 Puebla-Morelos quake of 19 September killed 369. Together the earthquakes caused MX$81.7 billion in damage and losses.
  • Big quakes keep coming but recent ones have been far less deadly: Michoacán (M7.7) in September 2022, Guerrero (M6.5) in January 2026, which killed two people, and offshore Chiapas (M7.4) in July 2026, with no injuries reported.
  • Mexico City’s SASMEX early warning system has run since 1991. Alerts now also reach mobile phones: the national drill of 19 September 2026 was to send them to more than 80 million handsets.
39,871earthquakes located by the SSN, 2025
468deaths in the two September 2017 quakes
MX$81.7bnquake damage and losses, 2017
80m+phones to receive the drill alert, Sept 2026

What the numbers show

The SSN, run by UNAM’s Institute of Geophysics, locates every earthquake its network picks up. Its yearly totals were 26,564 in 2017, 30,407 in 2018, 26,442 in 2019, 30,130 in 2020, 29,030 in 2021, 29,872 in 2022 and 24,117 in 2023 (ADN40, citing SSN), then 33,418 in 2024 (Gaceta UNAM) and 39,871 in 2025. In 2025 a quarter of epicentres were in the Gulf of California region, 19.2% in Oaxaca, 18.9% in Chiapas and 16.1% in Guerrero. The largest that year were an M6.2 near Coalcomán, Michoacán, on 12 January and an M6.0 off Chiapas on 9 August; Mexico City itself had 73 local quakes (Por Esto!, citing SSN). Higher counts mostly mean more small events are being detected; they are not a measure of damage. The SSN also publishes a special report on each notable event (SSN special reports).

Damage is concentrated in a few years. CENAPRED, the national disaster prevention centre, put 2017 disaster damage and losses at MX$88.4 billion (about US$4.9 billion) and deaths at 877. Earthquakes accounted for 92.4% of the damage, MX$81.7 billion, including MX$44.0 billion in Mexico City, MX$10.3 billion in Oaxaca and MX$8.9 billion in Chiapas. They damaged 182,809 homes and 10,470 schools (CENAPRED 2017 report). In 2018, the M7.2 Pinotepa Nacional quake in Oaxaca cost MX$1.3 billion and geological events killed 20 people (CENAPRED 2018 summary). In 2022, the Michoacán quake caused MX$789 million of damage in Michoacán and MX$1.0 billion in Colima; geological events killed seven people (CENAPRED 2022 report). In 2023, geological events caused just MX$14 million of damage and one death, out of MX$88.9 billion in total disaster losses that year, most of them from Hurricane Otis (CENAPRED 2023 summary).

What is driving it

Mexico sits where the Cocos plate dives beneath the North American plate. Two kinds of quake matter most. Megathrust events on the plate boundary, such as Guerrero’s M7.1 near Acapulco in 2021 and Michoacán’s M7.7 in 2022, are shallow, at around 10 to 15 km (SSN, SSN). Intraslab quakes break inside the sinking plate: both 2017 disasters were of this normal-faulting type. The Tehuantepec quake was 45.9 km deep and one of only five of magnitude 8 or more in Mexico’s instrumental record (SSN). The Puebla-Morelos quake was 57 km deep and only about 120 km from Mexico City (SSN). The city’s soft former lakebed amplifies shaking. In 2017, 44 buildings collapsed there; 91% had been built before 1985, 64% had one to five storeys and 57% failed with a soft storey (Galvis et al., Earthquake Spectra, 2020). A wider survey found more than 1,600 buildings severely damaged, collapsed or demolished, more than 700 of them designed under modern collapse-prevention codes (Tena-Colunga et al., Asian Journal of Civil Engineering, 2021). After 2017, Mexico City updated its Complementary Technical Norms for building design and created a standard for assessing and retrofitting existing buildings (Alcocer and Fernández Sola, 2025).

Warning time depends on distance. SASMEX, operated by the non-profit CIRES, has run for over 30 years, recorded about 9,800 quakes, issued 111 alerts and reaches an estimated 25 million people through receivers, loudspeakers, radio and TV (Suárez, Frontiers in Earth Science, 2022). For the distant M8.2 in 2017 it gave Mexico City nearly two minutes’ warning, but for the nearby M7.1 only a few seconds before strong shaking arrived (Suárez et al., Seismological Research Letters, 2018). A survey of 2,400 residents found people judged the system useful when there was enough time to act (Santos-Reyes, Sustainability, 2021). An earlier study had found a high rate of missed and false alerts between 1991 and 2004 (Iglesias et al., BSSA, 2007). National drills now pair the loudspeakers with phone alerts: the second national drill of 2026 used five regional scenarios and was set to reach more than 80 million mobiles (UnoTV, Por Esto!).

Recent cases

  • 19 September 2026: Mexico held its second national drill of the year, the first on a Saturday, with five regional scenarios including an M7.7 near Tehuacán, Puebla, and an M7.6 off Tonalá, Chiapas. Alerts went to mobile phones through the government’s national alert system, and about 23,000 loudspeakers sounded in central Mexico (UnoTV).
  • 17 July 2026: An M7.4 earthquake struck at 08:48 off the Chiapas coast, 135 km southwest of Ciudad Hidalgo, at 10 km depth; by 11:00 the SSN had counted 39 aftershocks, the largest M6.5 (SSN). Chiapas Civil Protection reported no injuries or deaths, and the Navy told people to keep away from beaches for six hours because of a possible small tsunami (La Crónica).
  • 2 January 2026: An M6.5 quake near San Marcos, Guerrero, set off the seismic alert in Mexico City, where 12 people were hurt (Expansión). Two people died: one in a house collapse in Guerrero and one in a fall while evacuating a building in Mexico City. The SSN counted 1,071 aftershocks by 10 pm (Por Esto!).

Press releases and official reports, 2023–2026

Five key releases a year for the last four years, newest first. Most come from national bodies such as INEGI, the Ministry of Health, CENAPRED, the National Seismological Service, CONAFOR, the Navy, CONDUSEF and the Official Gazette, from Congress, from international agencies such as PAHO and WHO, and from research journals. Key events, especially in earlier years where official archives are missing, come from Mexican news outlets such as La Jornada, El Universal, Excélsior, El Financiero, Animal Político and Mexico News Daily. Headlines are our English translations of the Spanish originals. Releases from 2007–2022 are in the expandable list after 2023.

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View 20 years of major Mexican earthquake press releases (2007–2026)73 more from 2007–2022, up to five a year, newest first

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Many years list fewer than five items, and some have none yet. Several official archives (parts of gob.mx, the Official Gazette and older agency pages) could not be opened when we compiled this list, 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 publisher’s own index; annual reports with no printed date are listed under the year they were released.

Photo list

Volunteers at a collapsed building in Colonia Roma, Mexico City, 19 September 2017
Volunteers at a building that collapsed at Viaducto and Torreón in Colonia Roma, Mexico City, on 19 September 2017. Photo: b de baca via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.
Mexico City ceremony marking the 1985 earthquake, 19 September 2017
The ceremony marking the 32nd anniversary of the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, on the morning of 19 September 2017. The magnitude 7.1 Puebla–Morelos quake struck the same afternoon. Photo: Gobierno CDMX via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

Related on ROR Labs

How this page is built. Figures come from the official statistical releases and research linked above; where agencies publish provisional numbers we say so, because they are revised. National death data come from INEGI’s death registrations, which are finalised the year after; preliminary figures are labelled. Some figures come from news reports quoting officials, and we name the outlet. Money is given in Mexican pesos (MX$). Headlines and quotes are our translations from Spanish. 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.