From videos online so far, it seems the strength of the quake didn't translate to massive lateral movement. There seemed to be lots of intense P-wave wiggling and bumping rather than large S-wave swings back and forth. The big Japan quake was one of those, where you saw offices being slid back and forth and everything flying off shelves.
Not sure what that means for the tsunami - but so far it seems less intense than the 8.8 would imply.
Japan uses a scale that measures the movement[0]. Of course depending on where you are the result changes, but it's a lot more usable for the practical "how much shaking will be involved here/was involved here".
The first list on that page is specifically for the deadliest earthquakes, and so it only includes earthquakes with 100,000+ fatalities. The ranking by magnitude is farther down (and according to that list, a magnitude of 8.8 would make it tied for sixth place).
Multiple lists. On the list of strongest by magnitude, it would be in a three-way tie for 7th if there's no further revision to the magnitude estimate (which there usually is). It would be second by magnitude on the list of deadliest earthquakes, but thankfully due to location will not likely make that list.
From videos online so far, it seems the strength of the quake didn't translate to massive lateral movement. There seemed to be lots of intense P-wave wiggling and bumping rather than large S-wave swings back and forth. The big Japan quake was one of those, where you saw offices being slid back and forth and everything flying off shelves.
Not sure what that means for the tsunami - but so far it seems less intense than the 8.8 would imply.
Japan uses a scale that measures the movement[0]. Of course depending on where you are the result changes, but it's a lot more usable for the practical "how much shaking will be involved here/was involved here".
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Meteorological_Agency_se...
Holy crap. That scale definitely makes it pretty clear what the effect of a quake is! Here's the highest level:
Intensity: 7
Category: Brutal
Description: Standing or moving is only possible by crawling. People may be thrown through the air.
I think it has been revised to 8. Earth is going off today. Edit my mistake, 8.8 now!
USGS still has it listed as magnitude 8.7.
(Update: It was just revised upward to 8.8.)
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us6000qw60...
The other way around it seems, on `07-29-2025 23:24:56 UTC` went from 8 to 8.7 [1]
[1] Table on https://www.tsunami.gov/
Looks like it was just updated to 8.8?
The 1960 Valdivia quake released about 1.5e23 J, or about 1000 hurricanes, or about 25% of the total energy of all earthquakes in the past 100 years.
Wow. The same region had a 9.0 in 1952
By magnitude it would be the second largest on that list
The first list on that page is specifically for the deadliest earthquakes, and so it only includes earthquakes with 100,000+ fatalities. The ranking by magnitude is farther down (and according to that list, a magnitude of 8.8 would make it tied for sixth place).
Multiple lists. On the list of strongest by magnitude, it would be in a three-way tie for 7th if there's no further revision to the magnitude estimate (which there usually is). It would be second by magnitude on the list of deadliest earthquakes, but thankfully due to location will not likely make that list.