How often are there earthquakes in Almaty?

Weak tremors are constant and felt ones happen several times a year. Almaty’s emergency department counted 39 felt earthquakes in three years, at intensities of 2 to 5 points, with no casualties or damage. USGS logs about 1.5 events of M4.5 or more a year within 200 km.

Is it safe to visit Almaty because of earthquakes?

The data gives no reason to cancel a trip and no forecast. Events of M6 or more within 200 km happened twice in 50 years. Officials classify the whole city as a high seismic hazard zone, so knowing the basic safety rules is sensible.

What was the biggest earthquake near Almaty?

In the USGS catalogue, the Kemin earthquake of 3 January 1911, M8.0, with an epicentre 37 km from the city by the catalogue’s coordinates. Since 1976 the strongest was M7.1 on 24 March 1978, 142 km east in Kyrgyzstan.

When was the last earthquake near Almaty?

As of 8 November 2026, the latest USGS event of M4.5 or more within 200 km was M5.0 on 12 August 2026, 189 km south-west in Kyrgyzstan. Closer in, an M4.6 hit 81 km north-east on 17 February 2026.

What should I do if an earthquake hits while I'm in a hotel?

Kazakhstan’s emergencies ministry advises staying calm, not using the lift and keeping away from windows and outer walls, then moving to open ground away from buildings and power lines once the shaking stops. Details are in the safety section below.

Can earthquakes in China or Kyrgyzstan be felt in Almaty?

Yes, large events 100–300 km away are felt in the city. The M7.0 of 22 January 2024 struck 261 km south-east in Xinjiang, China, and USGS logged 58 aftershocks of M4.5 or more nearby over the next five weeks.

Can I download the data?

Yes. The CSV file lists every event of M4.0 or more within 300 km since 1907, with coordinates, depth and distance to central Almaty. Licence CC BY 4.0.

Almaty earthquake data: 50 years of USGS records

Since 1976 the USGS catalogue has logged 78 earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or more within 200 km of Almaty, about one and a half a year. The strongest was M7.1 in 1978, 142 km away. The closest notable one was M4.8, 19 km from the centre, in 2015.

Almaty sits in an active seismic zone at the foot of the Tian Shan, and earthquakes around it are regular while destructive ones are rare. Since 1976 the US Geological Survey catalogue has logged 78 events of magnitude 4.5 or more within 200 km of the city, about one and a half a year. The strongest in those 50 years was M7.1 on 24 March 1978, 142 km east. The closest notable event was M4.8 on 15 March 2015, 19 km south of the centre.

Earthquakes of M4.5+ within 200 km of Almaty, by five-year period

10 1976–79 7 1980–84 9 1985–89 3 1990–94 7 1995–99 4 2000–04 13 2005–09 10 2010–14 11 2015–19 2 2020–24 2 2025–26

USGS Earthquake Catalog, charyn.kz calculation; 2025–26 is incomplete

The count per five-year period ranges from 2 to 13 with no steady rise or fall. At least one M4.5+ event within 200 km occurred in 35 of 51 years. The longest gap without one was 1,564 days, about 4.3 years; the median gap between events is 138 days.

Almaty earthquake data: what 50 years of USGS records show

Most notable quakes happen south of the city, in and beyond the Northern Tian Shan. Of the 78 events within 200 km, 51 lie to the south, south-east or south-west; only 3 lie to the west or north-west.

Earthquakes within 200 km since 1976, by magnitude

M4.5–4.9 55
M5.0–5.4 18
M5.5–5.9 3
M6.0 and above 2

USGS Earthquake Catalog, charyn.kz calculation

55 of the 78 events were below M5. Only two reached M6 or more within 200 km in 50 years: the M7.1 of 1978 and an M6.4 on 12 November 1990, 96 km east near Tyup in Kyrgyzstan. Most foci are shallow: median depth 19 km, three-quarters no deeper than 33 km.

People in the city feel tremors more often than this catalogue suggests. Almaty’s emergency department counted 39 felt earthquakes over the past three years, at intensities of 2 to 5 points, none with casualties or damage (Bes.media, 1 October 2026). According to the department, quoted by 24KZ, more than 200 weak earthquakes are recorded in Almaty each year. They fall below the M4.5 threshold used here.

The same department classifies the whole city, 683 km² in eight districts, as a high seismic hazard zone where earthquakes of intensity up to 9–10 points are possible. That is a hazard rating, not a forecast; we found no official forecast with dates or magnitudes and do not offer one.

The strongest earthquakes around Almaty since 1900

The strongest event in the catalogue is the Kemin earthquake of 3 January 1911, M8.0. By USGS coordinates its epicentre lies 37 km from central Almaty.

Date	Magnitude	Distance from Almaty	Direction	Location
3 Jan 1911	8.0	37 km	S	Kemin earthquake, Kyrgyzstan
24 Mar 1978	7.1	142 km	E	23 km ENE of Tyup, Kyrgyzstan
20 Jun 1938	7.0	100 km	SW	22 km ESE of Kemin, Kyrgyzstan
22 Jan 2024	7.0	261 km	SE	Xinjiang, China
17 Dec 1915	6.5	248 km	SE	Kyrgyzstan
12 Nov 1990	6.4	96 km	E	35 km NW of Tyup, Kyrgyzstan
5 Jun 1970	6.3	164 km	SE	near Ak-Suu, Kyrgyzstan
19 Apr 1945	5.9	56 km	SE	39 km SSE of Esik, Kazakhstan
31 Dec 1982	5.8	63 km	SE	near Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan
17 Jun 1988	5.7	54 km	SE	42 km SSE of Talgar, Kazakhstan

The seven strongest events within 300 km, then the three strongest within 100 km after them; dates in UTC. Magnitudes from different decades were calculated by different methods, so do not compare neighbouring rows to the decimal.

Not verified yet The 1887 Verny earthquake is not in the USGS catalogue. We do not give its magnitude, epicentre or effects because we did not open a primary source with those figures.

How far away: rings of 50 km

The further from Almaty, the more events fall inside each ring: 7 within 50 km since 1976, 170 in the 250–300 km ring. The outer ring is inflated by the aftershock series after the M7.0 of 22 January 2024.

Earthquakes of M4.5+ since 1976 by distance from central Almaty

under 50 km 7
50–100 km 18
100–150 km 25
150–200 km 28
200–250 km 41
250–300 km 170

USGS Earthquake Catalog, charyn.kz calculation

Epicentres of earthquakes of magnitude 4.0 or more within 300 km of Almaty — Epicentres of M4.0+ earthquakes within 300 km of Almaty, 1907 to 8 November 2026, from the USGS catalogue (644 events). The black dot is Almaty, dashed rings mark 50, 100 and 200 km, and dot size grows with magnitude (scale at bottom left: 4 to 8). National borders are not shown. Data: almaty-earthquakes.csv.

Date	Magnitude	Distance	Location
13 Mar 1983	4.8	29 km	near Otegen Batyr
3 May 1990	4.7	50 km	near Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan
25 Jan 1986	5.0	42 km	30 km SSE of Talgar
24 Jun 2005	4.6	34 km	31 km S of Talgar
29 Dec 2007	4.5	22 km	24 km SSW of Almaty
15 Mar 2015	4.8	19 km	20 km S of Almaty
4 Mar 2024	4.7	45 km	near Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan

The seven events within 50 km of the centre since 1976. None was stronger than M5.0. Read magnitude together with distance to the city.

January 2024 showed how a distant event becomes local news. The M7.0 struck 261 km away in Xinjiang, and over five weeks USGS logged 58 aftershocks of M4.5 or more nearby. That series is why 2020–2024 shows 84 events within 300 km but only 2 within 200 km.

What to do in an earthquake: official advice

Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Emergency Situations and its regional departments publish rules of conduct on gov.kz, in Russian and Kazakh. Below is what two of those publications agree on: the ministry (26 May 2024) and the Almaty Region department (7 February 2024).

Where you are	What the ministry advises
Indoors	Stay calm. Do not use the lift. Keep away from windows, outer walls and heavy furniture; stand in an inner corner of the room or an inner doorway.
Leaving the building	Do not run out during the shaking; leave once it stops. If you can, turn off water, gas and electricity first and take documents, a first-aid kit and a torch.
Outdoors	Move to open ground away from buildings, power lines, large trees and billboards.
In a car	Stop somewhere safe without blocking emergency vehicles and stay inside. Listen to the radio.
Afterwards	Be ready for aftershocks, help older and disabled people, and rely on official information.

The Almaty Region department adds that strong shaking lasts a little over a minute and that in a low-rise building you can run outside straight away, while the ministry’s publication says to leave after the shaking ends. We show both positions without choosing for you.

For a visitor this boils down to a few habits. In your hotel, find the stairs and exit when you arrive, because lifts are off limits during shaking. On city walks, note the nearest open square. We found no separate official rules for the mountains. Kazakhstan’s emergency number is 112; other numbers and route notification rules are on is Kazakhstan safe.

The emergency department says an early warning system of 28 stations has run in the city since late 2023, with 7 more in testing (Bes.media, 2026). The Almaty Region department says warnings go out by siren, SMS and police loudspeakers. Alerts are sent in Kazakh, Russian and English, according to a December 2025 report we could only find in secondary press, so check this on arrival.

What it means for a trip

The data neither argues for cancelling a trip to Almaty nor offers a forecast. It shows that M4.5+ events around the city happen about one and a half times a year, and that M6+ events within 200 km happened twice in 50 years.

Three useful things: know the rules in the table above, save 112, and in the mountains remember other hazards too, such as mudflows around Almaty. If you plan to head up, see also the mountains near Almaty and Medeu; the city itself is covered on Almaty.

How we calculated

A query to the USGS FDSN Event Web Service: centre 43.238°N 76.946°E, radius 300 km, magnitude 4.0 and above, 1 January 1900 to 8 November 2026. It returned 645 events. Distance from the city centre to each epicentre uses the haversine formula, direction uses the azimuth on eight compass points. Statistics use the period from 1 January 1976 and a threshold of M4.5; we did not check the catalogue’s completeness for weaker events, so M4.0–4.4 events are in the file but not in the conclusions.

Search interest, Ubersuggest, 9 November 2026: almaty earthquake about 1,900 searches a month worldwide, with peaks of 4,400–5,400; the Russian «землетрясение алматы» about 74,000 a month in Kazakhstan, with spikes to 246,000 in November 2024 and 135,000 in May 2025.

The script and raw API response are kept with the project and the query reruns with one command. Every event is in the CSV file. This page is updated after notable events near the city.

What we don’t know

Not verified yet The full catalogue of weak tremors is kept by Kazakhstan’s National Scientific Center for Seismological Observations and Research; we did not open it. We did not analyse the seismic zoning map or building codes and make no claims about how earthquake-resistant buildings are. USGS magnitudes come from different methods (mb, Ms, Mw), and local agencies may give a different value for the same event. Felt intensity depends on ground and building and cannot be derived from magnitude alone. We found no official rules for behaviour in the mountains during an earthquake.

How to cite

Link to this page: “charyn.kz, from the USGS catalogue, data as of 8 November 2026”. Always state the radius and magnitude threshold, for example “78 events of M4.5+ within 200 km since 1976”; without them the number means little. Quote safety rules from the ministry’s own pages on gov.kz. Licence CC BY 4.0.