EMSC Global Earthquakes Scraper

EMSC Global Earthquakes Scraper

Scrape global earthquake data from the EMSC public feed, filtered by magnitude, time, and geographic bounding box. Each event includes its magnitude, depth, coordinates, region name, and UTC timestamp. No API key required. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

The EMSC publishes real-time earthquake information for Europe, the Mediterranean, and the world, but their web interface makes it hard to pull bulk historical data or filter precisely. This Actor reads the public EMSC feed directly and lets you narrow results by magnitude range, a time window, and a lat/lon bounding box, so you only collect the events that matter to your analysis.

Who uses it	What they scrape EMSC for
Seismology researchers	Building a regional event catalog for a specific time period and magnitude threshold.
Insurance risk analysts	Monitoring recent seismic activity within a portfolio's geographic bounding box.
Newsroom data journalists	Pulling the latest felt earthquakes above a certain magnitude for a breaking-news map.
Disaster response coordinators	Tracking aftershock sequences in a defined area after a major event.

What it does

This Actor collects earthquake events from the EMSC public feed and returns each one as a flat row with magnitude, depth, location, and time.

• 📊 Magnitude filtering: set a minimum and maximum magnitude to exclude microseisms or focus on significant events.
• 🗺️ Geographic bounding box: restrict results to a rectangle defined by min/max latitude and longitude.
• 📅 Time window: supply ISO 8601 start and end times to scrape historical or recent earthquake data.
• 🔢 Result cap: limit the total number of earthquakes collected per run, up to one million.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with EMSC data

📈 Build a regional seismicity catalog.

A researcher sets a bounding box over the Aegean Sea, a start time of 2020-01-01, and a minimum magnitude of 3.0 to compile a multi-year event list for a tectonic study.

📰 Feed a live earthquake map.

A news developer runs the Actor every 15 minutes with a minimum magnitude of 4.5 and no geographic filter to populate a global map of newsworthy earthquakes.

📉 Assess portfolio exposure after a mainshock.

An insurance analyst sets a tight bounding box around insured properties and a start time immediately after a large event to count aftershocks above magnitude 2.5.

🔬 Filter out quarry blasts.

A seismologist sets a minimum magnitude of 2.0 and a maximum depth of 5 km over a mining region to isolate suspected anthropogenic events from the natural catalog.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API key	Reads the public EMSC feed with no registration or authentication.
Fixed schema	Every earthquake returns the same flat fields for easy database import.
Precise filtering	Combine magnitude, time, and location filters in a single run.

How it compares

No other Store actor targets EMSC the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

	EMSC Global Earthquakes Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When EMSC changes	Maintained for you	You fix it	You re-learn the page
Proxies, retries, anti-bot	Built in	Your problem	Browser only
Output	Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export	Whatever you build	Copy-paste
Cost	Pay per result	Engineering time	Analyst hours

Configure the run

Drive the Actor with magnitude thresholds, a time window, and a geographic bounding box, alone or together, and filters run as each event is read so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
 "maxItems": 10
}

A larger pull:

{
 "maxItems": 200
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.0085 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$0.85
1,000 results	$8.50
10,000 results	$85.00

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the EMSC Global Earthquakes Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to EMSC through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/emsc-earthquakes-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check that your time window is within the last 30 days and that your magnitude and bounding-box filters are not too restrictive. Try widening the filters or removing the time constraint to see if any events match.

Why are my results missing very recent earthquakes?

The EMSC feed updates every few minutes. A small delay between an event occurring and appearing in the feed is normal. Run the Actor again after a few minutes.

The bounding box is not returning the area I expect.

Remember that min/max latitude and longitude define a rectangle. Ensure minLat is less than maxLat and minLon is less than maxLon. For areas crossing the antimeridian, you may need two separate runs.

I set a maximum magnitude but still see larger events.

The maxMagnitude filter is inclusive. If you want to exclude a magnitude, set the maximum slightly below that value, for example 4.9 to exclude magnitude 5.0 and above.

FAQ

Question	Answer
What is the EMSC?	The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre is a non-profit that collects real-time earthquake data from seismological networks worldwide and publishes it as a public feed.
Do I need an API key or account?	No. This Actor reads the same public data feed that the EMSC website uses, so no registration or API key is required.
How far back can I get earthquake data?	The EMSC public feed typically provides events from the past 30 days. For older data, you would need to use a different source or a historical catalog.
Can I filter by country or region name?	The Actor filters by geographic bounding box (latitude and longitude), not by named region. You can set a bounding box that covers the country or area you need.
What magnitude scale is used?	The EMSC reports magnitude as a unified value, typically the moment magnitude (Mw) or local magnitude (ML) depending on what the contributing network provides.
Does this include depth and coordinates?	Yes. Each earthquake row includes the hypocentral depth in kilometers and the latitude and longitude of the epicenter.
Can I get the felt reports or damage information?	No. The public feed provides the seismic parameters. Felt reports and damage assessments are not included in this dataset.
How many earthquakes can I collect in one run?	You can set a maximum of up to one million events per run, though the actual number returned depends on how many match your filters in the feed.
What time format should I use for start and end times?	Use ISO 8601 format, for example 2026-06-01T00:00:00. The time is interpreted as UTC.
Can I run this on a schedule?	Yes. You can set up an Apify schedule to run the Actor every hour or every day to collect the latest earthquakes automatically.

Related actors

Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.