Wild Land

A burst of earthquake activity between 10:40 and 12:15 today produced three very powerful earthquakes in just over an hour-and-a-half.

Thursday 8th October 2009

A major earthquake struck Vanuatu at 11:03 N.Z. Daylight Time this morning. The magnitude 7.8 earthquake was located 260 km south of Lata in the Santa Cruz Islands (295 km north-north-west of Luganville, Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu) at a depth of 35 km.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued a bulletin at 11:17 reporting the earthquake as magnitude 8.0 at a depth of 33 km. The bulletin included a tsunami warning for nearby islands and a tsunami watch for the Kermadecs, Australia and New Zealand.

A further bulletin issued at 12:36 NZDT upgraded the watch to a warning, after a 40 cm wave was reported by a wave gauge at Luganville, Vanuatu at 12 minutes after midday NZDT. It is still unclear whether a destructive wave struck locally. For New Zealand, estimated arrival times for any resulting wave are 2:34 p.m. for North Cape, 3:16 p.m. for East Cape and 4:39 p.m. for Wellington.

An aftershock of magnitude 7.1 followed at 12:14 p.m. according to the US Geological Survey. This event was located 275 km south of Lata in the Santa Cruz Islands (280 km north-north-west of Luganville, Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu) at a depth of 33 km.

Earlier, at 10:41 this morning, a very deep magnitude 6.7 earthquake was recorded in the Celebes Sea, 320 km south of Zamboanga, Mindanao, in the Philippines.

[Compiled from data supplied by the United States Geological Survey and NOAA’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre. ]

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