Strong quake strikes Solomon Islands
AFP
A powerful 7.2 magnitude earthquake has struck near the Solomon Islands in the western Pacific, triggering panic but causing no major tsunami, officials say.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake struck about 103km from the earthquake-prone island town of Gizo at 9.36am on Monday and was measured at a depth of about 30km.
It was the largest of a swarm of tremors centred on the area, ignited by a 6.5 magnitude quake at 8.48am and followed several hours later by quakes of magnitude 5.3 and 5.2.
On the tiny island of Rendova, near Gizo, several houses collapsed but there were no other reports of damage, Julian Makaa of the National Disaster Management Office told AFP.
“The earthquake caused a small wave, and a few people suffered minor injuries as they ran away from the shore in panic,” he said.
An 8.0-magnitude earthquake in the same area nearly three years ago killed more than 50 people, destroyed hundreds of homes and displaced thousands.
The Hawaii-based tsunami warning centre said the latest earthquake was powerful enough to have been destructive along coasts near the epicentre but there was no wider threat.
“No tsunami threat exists for other coastal areas in the Pacific although some other areas may experience small, non-destructive, sea-level changes lasting up to several hours,” the centre said in a bulletin.
Gizo, on Ghizo island, is the second largest town in the Solomon Islands archipelago with a population of about 6,000.
It is about 360km northwest of the capital Honiara, on the island of Guadalcanal, where residents said they felt shakes but there was no damage. Honiara is 300km from where the nest of earthquakes was centred.
Geoscience Australia seismologist Clive Collins said the main quake, which was estimated at 7.0 magnitude by Australian seismologists, was probably about 80km from the nearest land.
Further south, in earthquake prone New Zealand, tremors of 4.3 and 3.5 were recorded over the past 24 hours.
Like much of the Pacific, the Solomons regularly experiences large earthquakes.
In April 2007, a 8.0-magnitude earthquake in the western Solomons centred near Gizo, triggered a tsunami that killed 52 people and displaced thousands.
Gizo harbour lost most of it wharves and jetties in the quake and subsequent tsunami which was officially put at five metres high but with some reports of a 10-metre-high wall of water.
On September 29, 2009, a devastating tsunami swept along coasts in the Pacific islands of Samoa and Tonga, killing 186 people and wiping out entire villages.
Villages and resorts in Samoa, American Samoa and northern Tonga were flattened by the giant waves generated by the massive earthquake, the strongest in a nearly a century.
Strong quake strikes Solomon Islands
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