Magnitude 7.2 Earthquake Strikes Off Vanuatu. The Tsunami Threat Passes With No Damage Reported

A powerful earthquake struck off Vanuatu in the early hours of Saturday, October 24. The U.S. Geological Survey initially reported it at magnitude 7.2, at 02:31 UTC — 1:31 p.m. local time — at a depth of 10 kilometers, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) west of Sola. The USGS subsequently revised the magnitude to 6.9, placing the epicenter about 197 kilometers west-northwest of Port-Olry. Both numbers come from the USGS: 7.2 was the first estimate, 6.9 the revision.

The epicenter, at 13.800 degrees south and 165.700 degrees east, lies in the sea west of Vanuatu’s northern islands. Sola, the town the USGS used in its first report, is the capital of Torba province, in the Banks Islands; Port-Olry, the reference point in the revised report, is on Espiritu Santo, the country’s largest island and the closest large island to the epicenter. The quake was shallow — 10 kilometers, about six miles, below the seabed — the kind of depth that most often prompts tsunami evaluation.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center warned of possible hazardous tsunami waves for coasts within 300 kilometers of the epicenter, estimating a first wave could reach Espiritu Santo at 03:01 UTC. In a bulletin issued at 03:28 GMT, the center confirmed the tsunami threat had passed. Minor sea-level fluctuations remained possible for some hours afterward, it said, with no further action needed beyond normal caution near the sea.

In local time, the sequence ran through Saturday afternoon — the main shock at 1:31 p.m., the 6.3 four minutes later, and the aftershocks continuing past 8 p.m. local time — without the reports of damage that followed the country’s last major earthquake.

The main shock was not alone. A second earthquake, magnitude 6.3, struck at 02:35 UTC, about 170 kilometers northwest of Port-Olry, also at 10 kilometers depth; the USGS gave it a green alert, meaning a low likelihood of casualties or damage. Further shocks followed through the morning: magnitude 5.1 at 03:08, 5.7 at 04:05, 5.8 at 05:23, a deeper 5.5 at 06:43, 5.0 at 06:52 and 4.9 at 09:38 UTC.

There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties. The official responses on record Saturday are the bulletins of the USGS and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center; no statement from Vanuatu’s government had been captured in the reporting available as this story was published.

Vanuatu, a Pacific island nation of about 320,000 people, sits on the Ring of Fire, on the New Hebrides Trench — one of the most active subduction zones on Earth, where the plates converge at about 170 millimeters a year. About 50 earthquakes above the reporting threshold were recorded within 250 kilometers of Saturday’s epicenter in the previous 30 days alone.

Saturday’s quake was the second strong one in the same area this week: on October 20, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake, with a nearby 6.3, struck near Port-Olry, with no tsunami threat assessed. The country’s reference disaster is far more recent and far worse. On December 17, 2024, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck Port Vila, the capital, killing at least 14 people, injuring 265 and affecting about 80,000 people, with damage put at about $231.7 million and a tsunami of 25 centimeters.

Sources: The U.S. Geological Survey; the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center; Reuters.