M 5.5 in Iceland on 20 Oct 2020 13:43 UTC

Event summary

This earthquake can have a low humanitarian impact based on the magnitude and the affected population and their vulnerability.

GDACS ID EQ 1240123
Earthquake Magnitude: 5.5M
Depth: 10 Km
Lat/Lon: 64.0186 , -22.1232
Event Date: 20 Oct 2020 13:43 UTC
20 Oct 2020 13:43 Local
Exposed Population: Less then 100 people in MMI VIII
260000 people within 100km
Inserted at: 21 Oct 2020 13:48 UTC
INFORM Coping capacity:
1.9 (Iceland)

GDACS Score

For more info on GDACS alert score click here.
  Earthquake
(Shakemap)		 GDACS score
NEIC 0 0
us6000ca0k Scaled population (raster) 0.6  
  C1 shakemap -0.59  
  C2 shakemap 0.53  
  Country Vulnerability 0  
  INFORM_normalised 0.62  
Maximum expected impact using different data sources.
Virtual OSOCC
Meteo assessment
Satellite products
Analytical products
Iceland - Earthquake (ECHO 21 Oct 2020)Wed, 21 Oct 2020 13:00

  • An earthquake of 5.6 M at a depth of 10 km occurred in southwestern Iceland on 20 October at 13.43 UTC. The epicentre was located very close to the capital Reykjavik, approximately 10 km south-west of the coastal town of Hafnarfjordur (around 10 km south of Reykjavik).
  • USGS PAGER estimates that up to 2,000 people were exposed to strong shaking.
  • According to media, there are no reports of casualties or damage.
Detailed event map. European Union, 2024. Map produced by EC-JRC.
The boundaries and the names shown on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the European Union.

Updates on volcanic activity (Smithsonian)

Latest media headlines

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Estimated casualties (PAGER)

USGS estimates the number of casualties for each earthquake for the Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER) product.
The graph shows the current fatalities estimate.

Exposed population

Data, images, links, services and documents

For this events, GDACS has links to information from the following sources: EC-JRC (48), (3), NEIC (4), OCHA (1), INGV (1), WMO (1), USGS (5), INFORM (2),