A strong earthquake with a magnitude of up to 7.0 near the remote Samoa islands group in the South Pacific had generated a tsunami, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said on Thursday.
SYDNEY: A strong earthquake with a magnitude of up to 7.0 near the remote Samoa islands group in the South Pacific had generated a tsunami, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said on Thursday.
“Sea level readings indicate a tsunami was generated. It may have been destructive along coasts near the earthquake epicentre,” the Hawaii-based warning centre said on its Web site
www.prh.noaa.govptwc.
Australian and Japanese geoscientists said the temblor generated only a "small wave" and that it was unlikely to cause major damage in coastal regions.
The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center bulletin was issued after the quake, which the US Geological Survey separately measured at 6.7, struck at 0622 GMT about 195 kilometers east-southeast of the Tongan town of Hihifo and 290 kilometers south-southwest of Pago Pago in American Samoa.
The USGS said the quake hit at a depth of 43.9 kilometres below the Pacific. Experts at Geoscience Australia said there had been no major tsunami as the two-hour marker passed.
The tsunami center said that if no waves had been spotted within two hours, the danger would have passed.
Seismologist David Jepsen said the earthquake had generated a "small wave" that caused a tidal surge of eight centimetres at Pago Pago.
"It appears not to have caused any damage," Jepsen said.
"We can't say for certain because we don't know the geography of where the wave hit, but an eight-centimetre surge would not indicate a major tsunami."
He said people would most likely have felt a "mild shaking" from the quake.
The Japanese weather agency, which closely monitors earthquakes around the Pacific, also said the tremor was unlikely to cause major destruction to coastal areas near the epicenter.
"We've been watching the quake as well, but considering the size of the earthquake we don't think it would be anything like the Sumatra tsunami" of December 2004, said Kiyoshi Sakuma of the Japan Meteorological Agency.
"It would be about 10 centimeters at most, even if the fluctuation of the sea surface gets bigger," he added.
Thailand's national disaster warning center said it had been alerted to the earthquake, but said it posed no tsunami threat to the kingdom.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said however that even if no wave had formed near land two hours after the quake, sea traffic should beware.
"Danger to boats and coastal structures can continue for several hours due to rapid currents," it said.
The tsumami warning prompted scrambling across the Pacific, where a 1998 tidal wave spawned by a 7.0-magnitude quake killed up to 2,000 people in Papua New Guinea.
Some 220,000 people were killed on December 26, 2004 when a massive tsunami triggered by a 9.3-magnitude quake wrought death and destruction in 11 Indian Ocean nations.
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