A strong, shallow undersea earthquake struck near Tonga this afternoon.
Saturday 13th February 2010
A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck 95 km south-south-east of the Tongan capital Nuku’Alofa at 3:34 this afternoon, New Zealand time. The undersea quake was centred 430 km east-south-east of Ndoi Island, Fiji, at a depth of 10 km.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre has not issued a bulletin for this event.
Geoscience Australia reports the quake as magnitude 6.2 at a depth of 32 km, estimating that it would have caused damage within 44 km of the epicentre, and would have been felt up to 560 km away.
During the past week the immediate area near today’s earthquake has been quiet. Two shallow quakes of magnitude 5.4 struck about 300 km south of Nuku’Alofa yesterday and on Tuesday 9th. Another burst of activity occurred further west, with three very deep quakes with magnitudes between 4.9 and 5.9 clustered about 300 km south-south-west of Fiji’s Ndoi Island during the past week.
[Compiled from data supplied by the U.S. Geological Survey and Geoscience Australia and their contributing agencies.]