7.8 earthquake struck off the Santa Cruz Islands
A magnitude-7.8 earthquake struck off the Santa Cruz Islands in the Pacific Ocean today, triggering a tsunami warning for several nations in the region.
The quake hit at 9:03 a.m. local time at a depth of 35 kilometers (22 miles), about 260 kilometers south of Lata on the Santa Cruz Islands and 295 kilometers north-northwest of Vanuatu, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It earlier measured the quake at magnitude 8.1. A 7.3-magnitude quake struck about 15 minutes later in the area, the USGS said.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said a warning is in effect for Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Kiribati, Wallis-Futuna and Howland-Baker. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
A tsunami watch was also in effect for the Marshall Islands, New Zealand, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Australia, the Cook Islands, Indonesia and Guam, according to an e-mailed alert from the center.
A tsunami in the Pacific on Sept. 29, sparked by a magnitude-8.0 earthquake, killed 137 people, injured 310 and left six missing in Samoa, a nation of 177,000, according to the United Nations.
Vanuatu is a group of 83 islands in the southwestern Pacific to the west of Samoa and northwest of Fiji. It has an international offshore financial center and is a popular tourist destination, about 2 1/2 flying hours from the Australian city of Brisbane, according to the Vanuatu tourist Web site.
Vanuatu is in a zone where the Pacific and Indo-Australian plates meet. These tectonic plates constantly shift, sometimes causing earthquakes, some of them causing tsunamis. Earthquakes of magnitude 5 or more can cause considerable damage depending on their depth.
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