Magnitude 5.8 Gyeongju earthquake strikes South Korea, the strongest on record

On the evening of 12 September 2016, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck near Gyeongju, a historic city in South Korea's southeast. It followed a magnitude 5.1 foreshock about an hour earlier. It was the strongest earthquake recorded in the country since modern instrumental measurements began.

The shaking was felt across much of the country, including Seoul, and aftershocks continued for months. Damage was mostly limited to buildings, cultural heritage sites such as roof tiles on traditional houses, and some infrastructure, and a small number of people were injured. The quake also led to the temporary shutdown of nearby nuclear reactors for inspection.

The event mattered because South Korea had long been regarded as a region of low seismic risk. The Gyeongju quake, followed by the magnitude 5.4 Pohang earthquake in 2017, pushed the government to review and strengthen earthquake-resistant design standards and to widen seismic assessments of key public facilities, which is the background to later reviews of structures such as airports.