Significant 5.3 quake hits near Ürümqi, Urumqi Shi, Xinjiang, China

Just 18 minutes ago, a 5.3-magnitude earthquake struck near Ürümqi, Urumqi Shi, Xinjiang, China. The tremor was recorded early morning on Saturday, March 7th, 2026, at 5:44 am local time, at a shallow depth of 10. km below the surface.
The event was filed by the United States Geological Survey, the first seismological agency to report it.
A second report was later issued by the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), which listed it as a magnitude 5.0 earthquake. Other agencies reporting the same quake include France's Réseau National de Surveillance Sismique (RéNaSS) at magnitude 5.1, and the citizen-seismograph network of RaspberryShake at magnitude 5.1.
Based on the preliminary seismic data, the quake should not have caused any significant damage, but was probably felt by many people as light vibration in the area of the epicenter.
Weak shaking might have been felt in Shihezi (pop. 572,800) located 72 km from the epicenter, Changji (pop. 198,800) 76 km away, Sandaohezi (pop. 60,100) 93 km away, and Ürümqi (pop. 3,029,400) 94 km away.
VolcanoDiscovery will automatically update magnitude and depth if these change and follow up if other significant news about the quake become available. If you’re in the area, please send us your experience through our reporting mechanism, either online or via our mobile app. This will help us provide more first-hand updates to anyone around the globe who wants to know more about this quake.

Earthquake data:
Date & time: Mar 7, 2026 05:44 am (Urumqi time) local time (6 Mar 2026 21:44 GMT)
Magnitude: 5.3
Depth: 10.00 km
Epicenter latitude / longitude: 43.73°N / 86.44°E (Changji Huizu Zizhizhou, Xinjiang, China)
Primary data source: USGS
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