Earthquakes recorded near the Bay of Kotor lately, from the EMSC regional catalogue — with the fault story behind the 1979 quake and tsunami, and the official channels that matter when the ground shakes.
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What has actually been recorded in and around the Bay of Kotor lately, from the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre's regional catalogue. Most of it is too small to feel. This is a record of what already happened — not a warning, and not a forecast.
Strongest in this window
M3,5
247 km south of Kotor and the Bay of Kotor · Not reported ·
18 earthquakes of magnitude M2,5 or larger within 250 km of town in the last 30 days.
If the shaking is long or strong, get to high ground
If you're near the shore and an earthquake lasts more than 20 seconds, or is strong enough that you can't stay on your feet, don't wait for an official tsunami warning — move away from the water and uphill on foot as soon as the shaking stops. The 1979 earthquake generated a tsunami recorded along this coast. Go back only once the authorities say it's safe.
This page is not an earthquake warning
Every quake here was recorded after it happened — no one can predict earthquakes, and this page cannot warn you of one. What it can do is show what the ground has been doing lately. If you feel a long or violent quake near the coast, act on the advice above without waiting for any alert.
The official channels
112 — the single emergency numberReaches police, fire, ambulance and rescue anywhere in Montenegro. The Ministry of Interior's Operational Communication Centre (OKC 112) coordinates the response to a serious quake.
EMSC — the catalogue this page readsMagnitudes are revised in the hours after an event, so an early figure can move. EMSC also collects felt reports from ordinary people, which is worth doing if you felt something.
Why the Bay of Kotor shakes
The Montenegrin coast sits over the boundary where the Adriatic microplate is pushed north-east under the Dinarides, and the Bay of Kotor lies above one of the resulting thrust faults — a seismogenic zone running roughly parallel to the shore rather than under any one town. That geometry is why a strong quake here tends to be felt along the whole coast at once, not centred on one place.
On 15 April 1979 a magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck offshore near Bar and Ulcinj, about 40 km south of Kotor. It killed just over 100 people in Montenegro and badly damaged the Bay's historic fabric — Kotor's Old Town was rebuilt stone by stone and stayed on UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger until 2003. Much of what looks centuries-old in the Old Town today was, in fact, rebuilt after 1979.
The 1979 quake also generated a tsunami: tide gauges along the coast recorded it, and newspaper reports at the time described waves as high as 3 metres in places, with one drowning. That is why a strong or long quake near the coast is treated here as a tsunami cue as well as a shaking one.
Checked 12 October at 13:09. Earthquake data from EMSC (European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC-CSEM), open data). Magnitude, depth and felt intensity are revised as analysis improves, and very fresh quakes can take minutes to appear.