A major earthquake struck near Vanuatu at 12:40 NZST today, Sunday 25th March 2007. The magnitude 7.2 earthquake was located 115 km south of Isangel, Tanna, Vanuatu at a depth of 35 km according to provisional information supplied by the U.S. Geological Survey.
It was followed two minutes later by a 32 km deep magnitude 6.7 earthquake 105 km north of Kanazawa, Honshu, Japan.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued bulletins on both events, but the transition to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) website appears to have caused problems with accessing some data. Of the two, only the bulletin concerning the event near Japan is available, and this suggests that a Pacific-wide tsunami threat does not exist.
Whilst the PTWC bulletin concerning the Vanuatu quake is not currently accessible, the site’s map indicates that the bulletin considered the tsunami threat as low.