What a magnitude 6 earthquake feels like

A magnitude 6 earthquake, felt close to where it starts, is hard to ignore: sharp, rolling shaking that lasts several seconds, pictures dropping off walls, furniture sliding, cracked plaster, and the occasional broken window. But the honest answer to what any magnitude feels like has a catch built into it. Magnitude measures the size of the earthquake at its source. What you feel depends on that size and on how far away you are, how deep the quake was, and what kind of ground you are standing on. The same magnitude 6 that rattles dishes 100 kilometres away can knock people off their feet directly above it.

With that in mind, here is a rough ladder of how earthquakes feel near the epicentre as magnitude climbs. Each whole step up the scale releases about 32 times more energy, so the jumps are much bigger than the numbers suggest.

Magnitude	Class	What it feels like near the epicentre
2 to 3	Micro to minor	Usually not felt. People at rest on upper floors may notice a faint bump, like a heavy truck passing outside.
3 to 4	Minor	A brief jolt or vibration felt indoors. Hanging lamps sway and a parked car rocks a little. Damage is rare.
4 to 5	Light	A sharp jolt or short rolling motion felt by most people indoors. Dishes and windows rattle, doors swing, and a few loose objects fall from shelves.
5 to 6	Moderate	Strong shaking that stops what you are doing. Books fall from shelves, plaster cracks, and some windows break. Weak or older buildings can be damaged.
6 to 7	Strong	Hard to stand. Heavy furniture shifts or topples, chimneys and poorly built walls crack or fall. Well-built structures usually survive with damage.
7 to 8	Major	Violent shaking lasting many seconds. Widespread damage to ordinary buildings, some collapse, and the ground itself may crack and slide.
8 to 9	Great	Prolonged, violent shaking, often well over a minute. Severe destruction near the source, ground ruptures, landslides, and, offshore, tsunamis.
9 and above	Great	Among the largest ever recorded. Shaking can last three to five minutes across a vast area, with catastrophic near-field damage and ocean-crossing tsunamis.

Walking up the ladder

At the bottom of the scale, most earthquakes pass unnoticed. The planet produces millions of magnitude 2 and 3 events a year, and only the closest or shallowest register as a faint knock. Around magnitude 4, a quake becomes something people talk about the next day: a single firm jolt, a few seconds of buzzing, maybe a picture frame tilted on the wall.

The character of the shaking changes as you climb. Small nearby earthquakes tend to feel like a sudden bang or bump, because the high-frequency energy arrives all at once. Larger and more distant earthquakes feel like slow rolling or swaying, because the ground has more time to move and the longer, slower waves dominate. A magnitude 5 close by can feel more alarming than a magnitude 6 far away, even though the magnitude 6 released far more energy overall.

By magnitude 6 the shaking is genuinely strong near the source, and by magnitude 7 it becomes hard to stay upright. The step from a magnitude 6 to a magnitude 7 is not modest: it is roughly 32 times more energy. That is why a magnitude 7 can level poorly built structures across a city while a magnitude 6 mostly damages the weakest ones.

Why the same magnitude feels different

Three things reshape a given magnitude by the time it reaches you. Distance is the biggest: shaking fades quickly as waves spread out and lose energy. Depth matters too, because a shallow quake concentrates its shaking on a small area at the surface, while a deep one spreads weaker shaking over a wider region. And ground type can double or halve what you feel: soft valley sediments and landfill amplify shaking, while solid bedrock damps it. Two identical earthquakes can produce very different experiences a few kilometres apart because one neighbourhood sits on rock and the other on old bay mud.

Magnitude is not the same as shaking

Because of all this, scientists separate the size of the earthquake from the strength of the shaking at any one place. Magnitude is a single number for the whole event. The shaking you feel is described separately by an intensity scale, which is covered in the guide to the Modified Mercalli intensity scale. One earthquake has one magnitude but many intensities, strongest near the source and weaker with distance.

If you felt shaking and want to know how big it was and how far away, the fastest check is to look at what has actually been recorded. You can see recent earthquakes near your location or explore the whole planet on the live globe, then compare the magnitude and distance against the ladder above. For more on the difference between the old Richter numbers and the moment magnitudes agencies use today, see the guide to earthquake magnitude scales.