The largest earthquake to strike Mexico in a century — a rupture that tore clean through the diving tectonic plate rather than sliding along its surface.
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DownloadThe 2017 Chiapas earthquake struck on September 8, 2017, registering magnitude 8.2 (moment magnitude, Mw). Each whole step on the moment-magnitude scale is roughly 32 times more energy, so this released on the order of 1,995× the energy of a magnitude 6.0 earthquake.
Its epicenter was located near 15.02°N, 93.90°W, at a depth of about 47 km — a shallow crustal earthquake. Shallow earthquakes like this release their energy close to the surface, which is why the shaking near the epicenter was so violent.
An estimated 98 people were killed.