The Pacific Tsunami Warning Service on Friday lifted a tsunami warning triggered by a magnitude 7.7 earthquake in the waters off New Caledonia, which included several South Pacific countries.
“Tsunami danger has substantially passed,” indicated the latest service update after keeping the alert active for more than three hours and affecting other countries including Fiji, Vanuatu and New Zealand.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), which monitors global seismic activity, recorded a powerful earthquake at 2:00 p.m. local time (3:00 GMT) southeast of the Loyalty Islands in New Caledonia – which raised the alert. Activated.
USGS detected telluric movement on the Isle of Pines, the southernmost part of New Caledonia, 37 kilometers deep beneath the ocean floor and 333 kilometers southeast of the city of Waau.
Officials in New Caledonia, a French overseas territory, saw waves of up to 50 cm on the Isle of Pines and about 40 cm on Mare Island, for which they also decided to lift the alert.
While short wave arrivals have also been recorded on Anitium Island in Vanuatu, collected by the New Zealand public radio station Radio New Zealand.
The New Zealand National Emergency Management Agency said “strong and unusual currents and unexpected surges” were expected in some coastal areas in the west of the country.
New Caledonia is located near the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire and the submarine volcanoes of the Lau Basin, which is why it regularly records tremors of seismic origin.
