A magnitude 7.5 earthquake off the cost of Tonga and Fiji this morning generated three false earthquake alerts in New Zealand.
The 7.5 quake hit around 5.19am New Zealand time and had a focal depth of 170km.
A 7.5 earthquake struck off the coast of Tonga today. Photo: GeoNet.
The US Geological Survey says it was situated 287km southwest of Nuku'alofa, Tonga, and 712km southeast of Fiji.
There is no tsunami warning in place at this stage.
The USGS says it occurred as a result of normal faulting and there have been frequent earthquakes in the area where it happened before, none of which are known to have caused significant damage.
Just after the earthquake struck, GeoNet's system registered three false quakes in the North Island.
The first 5.2 quake was 115km northeast of Te Araroa with a focal depth of 221km. The second registered 30km northeast of Te Araroa, measuring 5.5 with a focal depth of 9km.
The largest false earthquake was recorded 35km east of Tolaga Bay, measuring 6.1 on the Richter Scale.
GeoNet says the false quakes were generated as a result of seismic waves coming from the original quake.
The organisation tweeted 'apologies large Fiji EQ caused two false events in our system these have been deleted”.
1 comment
tsunamies
Posted on 25-05-2013 09:50 | By hapukafin
there could have been huge tsunami coming this way along with the big shakes in the northern memisphere and we have no warning system in place
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