The quake, initially reported as a magnitude 7.6, struck at 1:14 p.m. EDT and was centered 133 miles northwest of Santo in Vanuatu, at a depth of 22.4 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
“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 tsunami center said, adding that it was not yet clear whether a tsunami had actually been generated.
It said the warning was in effect for the region only and that it would not expand to other areas of the Pacific based on the information known so far.
Police and fire service officials in Vanuatu said they had not felt the quake and had received no reports of a tsunami.
Eddie Stice, Vanuatu Country Director for the U.S. Peace Corps, said by telephone that he had not felt the quake from the capitol Port Vila, which is on an island a few hundred miles south of the quake epicentre.
The area closest to any tsunami was only very lightly populated, he added. “We have no reports of a tsunami, no reports of any damage,” he said, but Peace Corps volunteers were calling to identify anyone in the area.
“We didn’t feel anything in Honiara,” said U.S. Consular Agent Keithie Saunders by telephone from Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Her office is several hundred miles northwest of Vanuatu.
