SYDNEY – An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 rocked the Loyalty Islands region of the South Pacific on Tuesday, the US Geological Survey said.
The quake, centered 86 kilometers (55 miles) southwest of Vanuatu and 177 kilometers northeast of the Loyalty Islands in the French territory of New Caledonia, struck at 1833 GMT at a depth of three kilometers, it said.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no threat of a tsunami and there were no immediate reports of damage.
But it added that "earthquakes of this size sometimes generate local tsunamis that can be destructive along coasts located within a hundred kilometers of the earthquake epicenter".
A second quake, of magnitude 6.0, struck in the area at 2026 GMT at a depth of 10 kilometers. There was no immediate tsunami warning after that quake.
An 8.0-magnitude earthquake in the nearby Solomon Islands in April 2007 triggered a tsunami that killed more than 50 people and displaced thousands.
0 comments:
Post a Comment