Skip to content
Guest Thinkers

M7.9 earthquake in Tonga

This falls under the category of “when it rains, it pours”.

This falls under the category of “when it rains, it pours”. A M7.9 earthquake struck today in the Tongan arc. It doesn’t appear to be related to the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai eruption as it occurred a few hundred kilometers to the SSE of the volcano (remember folks, correlation does not mean causation). The earthquake looks like it was relatively shallow in the crust – ~10 km. All these events will definitely make life even more complicated for the people on Nuku’alofa (Tongatapu), but no word of damage/effects on the Tongan island. A tsunami advisory was also issued for Hawai’i and other spots around the Pacific Basin.


{Hat tip to my officemate Tatia for announcing the earthquake to us as it happened.}


Related

Up Next