A magnitude 6 earthquake shook the waters of the South Pacific this Friday south of Tonga, an island country inhabited by some 106,000 people, with no casualties reported or a tsunami warning declared.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), which records seismic activity around the world, located the tremor at a depth of 22 kilometers under the seabed.
The shock was recorded at 9:11 p.m. local time (03:11 a.m. Colombia time), about 264 kilometers southwest of the city of Ohonua, inhabited by some 1,300 people and in the west of the island of Eua, and 278 kilometers southwest of Nuku’alofa, the capital and most populous city.
The Pacific Tsunami Alert Center has not issued any alarm for the risk of a giant wave.
On the afternoon of this Thursday the 15th, an earthquake was also registered in Tonga, of magnitude 7.2. It happened at 1:06 pm local time and had a depth of 167 kilometers.
(You can read: 6.2 magnitude earthquake shakes the Philippines, aftershocks warn).
Tonga is located in the so-called Pacific Ring of Fireone of the areas of the planet with the greatest seismic activity and where tremors of different intensity occur daily.
The so-called North Lau Basin, located between Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, contains dozens of active craters located between 1,000 and 1,500 meters deep.
At least 189 people died in Tonga and Samoa in the tsunami caused by two simultaneous earthquakes of magnitude 8 and 8.1 in September 2009.
In January 2022, Tonga was devastated by a tsunami caused by a violent eruption of an underwater volcano, which left at least three dead, cut off the country for several days and affected more than 80% of its population.
EFE
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