1692 Northwestern Europe earthquake
Earthquake / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 1692 Verviers earthquake, also known as the 1692 Ardennes earthquake, occurred in the east of Belgium on 18 September 1692 measuring around 6.2[1] on the Richter scale. Parish records and historical accounts strongly indicate the earthquake's epicenter was northwest of Verviers, and the event was widely felt across Western Europe in modern-day Belgium, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France. The largest amount of damage occurred in the northwestern environs of Verviers, then part of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. Researchers at the Royal Observatory of Belgium have considered this the strongest known earthquake in Western Europe north of the Alps,[2] which occurred as part of a sequence of quakes from the Lower Rhine Graben in September 1692.
Local date | 18 September 1692 |
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Local time | 14:00-15:00 WET |
Magnitude | 6.0–6.5 Ms[1][2] |
Epicenter | 50.61°N 5.825°E / 50.61; 5.825 |
Areas affected | Modern-day Belgium, France, Netherlands, Germany, England |
Max. intensity | MMI VII (Very strong)-MMI VIII (Severe) [3] |