Moderate mag. 4.9 earthquake - North Pacific Ocean, 133 km east of Miyako, Iwate, Japan, on Saturday, 16 December 1989 at 12:46 (GMT)

Moderate mag. 4.9 earthquake - North Pacific Ocean, 133 km east of Miyako, Iwate, Japan, on Saturday, 16 December 1989 at 12:46 (GMT)

Moderate magnitude 4.9 earthquake at 27 km depth

Date & time: 16 Dec 1989 12:46:38 UTC
Magnitude: 4.9
Depth: 26.7 km
Epicenter latitude / longitude: 39.672°N / 143.497°E (North Pacific Ocean, Japan)
Nearest volcano: Nanashigure (209 km / 130 mi)
Nearby towns and cities:
133 km (83 mi) E of Miyako (pop: 51,700) --> See nearby quakes!
147 km (91 mi) ENE of Kamaishi (pop: 43,100) --> See nearby quakes!
193 km (120 mi) ESE of Hachinohe (pop: 239,000) --> See nearby quakes!
201 km (125 mi) E of Morioka (pop: 295,200) --> See nearby quakes!
209 km (130 mi) ENE of Kitakami (pop: 93,900) --> See nearby quakes!
267 km (166 mi) ESE of Aomori (pop: 298,400) --> See nearby quakes!
276 km (171 mi) NE of Sendai (pop: 1,063,100) --> See nearby quakes!
289 km (180 mi) E of Akita (pop: 320,100) --> See nearby quakes!
418 km (260 mi) SSE of Sapporo (pop: 1,883,000) --> See nearby quakes!
555 km (345 mi) NE of Tokyo (pop: 8,336,600) --> See nearby quakes!
Primary data source: USGS (United States Geological Survey)
Estimated released energy: 1.4 x 1012 joules (392 megawatt hours, equivalent to 338 tons of TNT) More info
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Data for the same earthquake reported by different agencies

Info: The more agencies report about the same quake and post similar data, the more confidence you can have in the data. It takes normally up to a few hours until earthquake parameters are calculated with near-optimum precision.
MagnitudeDepthLocationSource
M 4.927 kmoff the east coast of Honshu, JapanUSGS
Note: for quakes of 2012 and earlier, our database often contains only records from USGS.

User reports for this quake

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