Vanuatu has been hit by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake at 04:14 local time on Friday (17:14 UTC on Thursday). The epicenter was located 215 kilometers to the northwest of Luganville, Espíritu Santo, Vanuatu; 340 kilometers to the southeast of Lata, Santa Cruz Islands, Solomon Islands; 485 kilometers to the northwest of Port-Vila, Vanuatu; and 2,070 kilometers to the northeast of Brisbane, Australia.
The earthquake had a depth of 36.1 kilometers, approximately 22.4 miles. NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning for Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and New Caledonia. They said on the report: "It is not known that a tsunami was generated. This warning is based only on the earthquake evaluation. An earthquake of this size has the potential to generate a destructive tsunami that can strike coastlines in the region near the epicenter within minutes to hours." The Vanuatu government Meteorological Office reported infrastructure cracks, and power outages, but does not foresee major damage. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, CNN reported. USGS initially reported the earthquake as 7.6, but they later downgraded it. A 5.2 aftershock was reported later by USGS.
Vanuatu is an insular country located in southern Pacific Ocean, located 1,750 kilometers to the east of Australia.
Source: WIKINEWS
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Cute, I had to be told by my Google allert that we had 7.6 tremor...
ReplyDeleteWe have hundreds of tremors throught the year, this one was no different, so odd to be told and then find notification in this site (which by the way is fantastic).
If you want to see what Vanuatu looks like check out:
You can see thousands of photos of the numerous islands I have taken over the many years living here at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/vanuatutravel.
Tropical regards from Vanuatu
John Nicholls
www.vanuatu-hotels.vu