Erdbeben sind in dieser Region nicht ungewöhnlich. Das letzte spürbare Beben im Raum nördlich von Laufenburg wurde am 12. März 2018 mit einer Magnitude von 3.1 in 17 km Tiefe registriert, ebenso eines in Zell (20 km vom heutigen Beben entfernt) am 5. Mai 2009 mit einer Magnitude von 4.2 in 12 km Tiefe.

Es kann mit weiteren  Nachbeben gerechnet werden. Solche Nachbeben treten üblicherweise nach stärkeren Beben auf, wobei die Häufigkeit und die Stärke dieser Ereignisse mit der Zeit abnimmt. Weitere Beben mit einer ähnlichen oder gar grösseren Magnitude wie das Beben um 3:06 Uhr sind zwar unwahrscheinlich, aber nicht auszuschliessen.

Es kann mit Nachbeben gerechnet werden. Solche Nachbeben treten üblicherweise nach stärkeren Beben auf, wobei die Häufigkeit und die Stärke dieser Ereignisse mit der Zeit abnimmt. Weitere Beben mit einer ähnlichen oder gar grösseren Magnitude wie das Beben um 2:34 sind zwar unwahrscheinlich, aber nicht auszuschliessen. Beben mit einer Magnitude von 4 oder mehr treten in der Schweiz im Schnitt alle ein bis zwei Jahre einmal auf. Das letzte Beben mit einer vergleichbaren Stärke (Magnitude 4.4) in dieser Region ereignete sich am 25. Oktober 2020 bei Elm (GL). Das letzte verspürte Beben im Kanton Schwyz ereignete sich am 4. März 2015 östlich der Kantonshauptstadt. Es hatte eine Magnitude von 2.8.

Video recordings document this impressive event, but fortunately, no one was injured. However, the seismic stations also recorded the tremors caused by the landslide, even at distances well over 100 kilometres. In contrast to earthquakes, seismograms of mass movements are comparatively long-lasting and are characterised by a broad distribution of seismic energy. They also lack the clear, impulsive phase arrivals typical of earthquakes. This makes the exact location of a mass movement very uncertain using only the seismic information; it can deviate several kilometres from the true location. However, the origin time of mass movements can be determined to the second.

Only mass movement events that are clearly visible in the seismic data are listed in the newly published SED database. The list of events is therefore incomplete: smaller or slow-moving mass movements or those that occur in areas with poor coverage of the seismic network are not detected. Furthermore, the identification of mass movements is carried out manually, so new events may only be added days after they occur. Some events are externally confirmed and indicated as ‘confirmed’ in the last column of the list. The magnitude is purely indicative and calculated using the scale defined for local Swiss earthquakes. The list of mass movements dates back to 2009 and will continue to be updated.

More information

List of mass movements

Hands-on earthquake research in the classroom 

Since they were installed, the seismometers at cantonal schools and high schools have been continuously recording the earth's movements. That also includes the tremors from local quakes such as the one on 27 February near Saignelégier (canton of Jura) with a magnitude of 3.4. Students can access the data recorded on their own devices as well as over 2,000 Raspberry Shake seismometers installed worldwide in real time via the Raspberry Shake website. The data is presented in an easy-to-understand way, making it easy to pinpoint the epicentre of an earthquake, for example, as part of a lesson. This allows pupils to gain practical insights into the world of earthquake research and deepen their understanding of various seismological concepts.

The Seismo@School programme

The Seismo@School initiative has its origins in a programme launched by the University of Lausanne and HES-SO Valais-Wallis in recent years, in which 22 schools in the cantons of Valais and Vaud are involved. Thanks to a two-year AGORA project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) entitled "Increasing earthquake awareness in Switzerland", the SED has now been able to extend this programme to the whole of Switzerland.

The long-term vision of the project is a Switzerland-wide Seismo@School programme that includes multilingual teaching materials, regular activities for teachers and international partnerships. This initiative is a major step in promoting earthquake preparedness and knowledge among young people, which will ultimately help ensure that society is better able to cope with earthquakes in the future.

Resources for teachers

In the coming months, the Seismo@School team will be developing, and making freely available, school materials covering specific seismology topics: earthquake hazard and risk, induced seismicity, misinformation and media literacy, and earthquake measurement and localisation. From spring semester 2025, geography teachers will also be offered an annual training day on the new teaching materials. There is also a digital learning hub "CoP Geography" on Microsoft Teams, where teachers can network and share helpful materials. Interested teachers can email the Seismo@School project team at: seismo_at_school[at]sed.ethz.ch.

For additional information

Project description
CPPS project web page: www.cpps-vs.ch/seismo-at-school

Starting with the exploration phase (installation of the drilling site, sinking of the borehole, test stimulations), baseline monitoring will help to detect any earthquakes near the project site and make it possible to distinguish between natural earthquakes and those caused by the project. The SED will publish the recorded data in real time at this page, providing the Canton, the public, the media and also the project operator with up-to-date information. In addition, the SED will alert the Canton and the operator immediately in the event of earthquakes near the project site.

This baseline monitoring will be of most use in the geothermal project's exploration and stimulation phase (not yet authorized). In the enhanced geothermal system (EGS) solution that will be rolled out in Haute-Sorne, the permeability of existing crack networks in the geological underground will be increased by injecting highly pressurised water to trigger a large number of small earthquakes. While EGS projects are already contributing to heat and energy generation in some places, they have also triggered felt earthquakes in others. In fact, there was one case where it has been suggested that these earthquakes were strong enough to cause substantial damage (see news article on the earthquake in Pohang, South Korea).

In Haute-Sorne, the operater Geo-Energie Jura wants to prevent felt or even damaging earthquakes from occurring with a comprehensive risk analysis, continuously updated models based on newly acquired data and its patented, multi-stage stimulation method. It plans, as part of this process, to stimulate only a limited volume of rock at a time in a number of separate stimulation phases and to gradually create a geothermal reservoir of the appropriate size. This procedure differs from the one-step, mass stimulation strategy adopted, for example, for the EGS projects in Basel in 2006 and Pohang in 2017. The multi-stage stimulation solution has already been successfully tested on a smaller scale in ETH Zurich's BedrettoLab. While there is some risk of felt earthquakes during the Haute-Sorne project's subsequent construction phase (hydraulic stimulation), these are very unlikely to occur during the drilling phase that is about to start. According to the operator, the first test stimulation is not planned to take place until winter 2024/2025.

The baseline monitoring provided by the SED is regulated by an agreement with the Canton of Jura and funded by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy-financed GEOBEST2020+ project. Alongside this baseline monitoring, Geo-Energie Jura operates its own stations to locate even smaller earthquakes, particularly during the stimulation phase, and so monitor the development of the geothermal reservoir. Although this phase is planned, it has not yet been authorized.

Further information on the seismic monitoring of the Haute-Sorne geothermal project can be found on the following pages:

Project overview

Natural seismicity in the region

Seismic monitoring

List of earthquakes

Real-time seismograms

Das letzte, etwas grössere Ereignis in dieser Region, ereignete sich im Oktober 2021 mit einer Magnitude von 4.1 etwa 5 km südlich von Arolla (VS). Der Erdbebenherd lag damals in etwas geringerer Tiefe, verglichen mit dem heutigen Beben. Aufgrund der geringeren Tiefe wären kleinere Schäden nahe dem Epizentrum vereinzelt möglich gewesen. Allerdings ist die Region sehr dünn besiedelt und es wurden dem Schweizerischen Erdbebendienst keine Schäden gemeldet.

Das Beben steht wahrscheinlich im Zusammenhang mit der Fribourger Verwerfungszone, welche überwiegend in Nord-Süd-Richtung verläuft und etwa 20-30 km lang ist. Das letzte spürbare Erdbeben an dieser Verwerfungszone wurde am 29. Dezember 2018 mit einer Magnitude von 2.9 nordwestlich von Tafers aufgezeichnet.

Why do we need information about earthquakes in plain language?

People with learning difficulties, cognitive impairments, a different native language, or illnesses such as dementia often find it difficult to understand texts. Plain language is a tool that enables these people to inform themselves independently and act accordingly. This is particularly relevant for topics such as earthquakes, which affect the entire population. Together with the Pro Infirmis Office for Plain Language (Büro für Leichte Sprache in German), the Swiss Seismological Service has translated information about earthquakes in Switzerland and recommended behaviour into plain language and tested it with the target group. The texts are available in German, English, French, and Italian.

More about natural dangers in plain language

The past year was marked seismically by several earthquake sequences in which numerous localised earthquakes occurred over several days or even months. Such sequences accounted for the three strongest quakes of 2023. The most powerful was a 4.3-magnitude earthquake in Haute-Ajoie near Réclère (canton of Jura) on 22 March. This was also the strongest earthquake recorded in the region in the last 100 years. The tremors from the quake were clearly felt in the Jura and throughout the western Swiss Plateau. There were also isolated reports from Lausanne, Bern, Lucerne and Zurich. The second largest quake of 2023, with a magnitude of 3.8, also occurred as part of this sequence (on 29 May). Previously, this region was hit by a 4.1-magnitude earthquake at Christmas 2021, followed by several aftershocks.

The third largest earthquake last year took place outside Switzerland, near Sierentz in Alsace (France), and was felt widely as far as the Basel region and western Aargau. The earthquake had a magnitude of 3.6 and was related to the magnitude-4.7 quake that occurred there in September 2022. These quakes are located in the seismically active Upper Rhine Graben, which extends from the Vosges to the Black Forest. A sequence in the Hegau-Bodensee Graben (also known as the Hegau-Lake Constance Graben) near Singen (Germany) caused further smaller but still noticeable earthquakes in Switzerland. A total of ten quakes of magnitude 2.5 or above have occurred there since June 2023. The strongest earthquakes in this sequence so far took place on 27 June (magnitude 3.1), 29 June (magnitude 3.2) and 25 August (magnitude 3.4). All three were felt sporadically in Switzerland, particularly in the Schaffhausen region. 

Several earthquakes felt locally despite small magnitude

Most of the approximately 1,500 earthquakes recorded were too weak to be felt by the population. Twenty-eight had a magnitude of 2.5 or greater, the same number as in 2022 and slightly more than the long-term average. Above this magnitude, earthquakes are usually felt close to the epicentre, as was the case with the quakes in March near Tiefencastel (magnitude 2.6) and Rossens (magnitudes 2.7 and 3.0). 

Last year also saw a few earthquakes that could be clearly felt despite their smaller magnitude. This is usually due to a combination of shallow depth, local subsurface amplification effects and other topographic influences, as well as the timing of the earthquake. On the morning of 31 May, shortly before 6 a.m., over 50 people near Vaduz (Liechtenstein) felt slight tremors caused by a magnitude-1.8 earthquake. The quake on 14 December, which happened shortly after midnight near Mollis (canton of Glarus), was even smaller at magnitude 1.6. Because its hypocentre was very close to the surface, just a few hundred metres down, it was powerful enough to wake several people in Mollis and Näfels.

Earthquake impacts in Switzerland systematically determined for the first time

Although several thousand people notice earthquake tremors every year, major damaging earthquakes in Switzerland are becoming a distant memory. However, the earthquake risk model of Switzerland, published for the first time in 2023, shows that the impact of earthquakes on buildings and the associated financial and human losses can be very high. Urban areas in particular are at high risk from earthquakes due to their population density and number of buildings. The SED developed the earthquake risk model at the request of the Federal Council, together with the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), the Federal Office for Civil Protection (FOCP), EPFL and other partners from industry. It provides a valuable tool enabling the public, authorities and businesses to prepare for earthquakes and to better cope with the next damaging quake. 

Download image (PDF)

Watch animation "Earthquakes in Switzerland in 2023"

Das letzte spürbare Beben in der Region ereignete sich am 2. Januar 2012 mit einer Magnitude von 3.5 in der Nähe von Filisur (GR). Davor ereignete sich am 21. Januar 2008 bei Bonaduz (GR) ein Beben mit einer höheren Magnitude von 4.1, gefolgt von jeweils einigen kleineren Nachbeben.

Such series with many seismic events of comparable magnitude and location are quite common in Switzerland. Currently, other sequences are ongoing near Réclère (Ajoie, JU), above Sion (VS) and between Courmayeur (I) and the Swiss border.