The Pacific Tsunamis Alert Center has raised a Tsunami alert this Sunday after an earthquake of 7.1 magnitude near Tonga, an island country of the Pacific. “According to the available data, Tsunami’s threat caused by this earthquake has concluded,” says the body’s alert portal.
The agency made the decision after registering waves of between 0.01 and 0.05 meters above sea level, while previously warned of the arrival of waves of up to 1 meter. “Minor fluctuations could occur at sea level in some coastal areas near the earthquake during the next few hours,” the center underlines in its final message.
The United States Geological Service (USGS, acronym in English), which records the seismic activity worldwide, indicated that the tremor happened at 01:18 in the morning of Monday, local time (12:18 GMT), and located the tremor at a depth of 10 kilometers under the marine bed.
The shaking was recorded about 90 kilometers southeast of the city of Pangai, with about 2,000 inhabitants, and in the northeast of Nuku’alofa, the capital and with about 27,600 people the most populous city in the country.
The tsunamis alert agency pointed out that in Nuku’alofa the record of the registered sea was 0.01 meters, while in Alofi, the capital of Niue Island -a free state associated with New Zealand -became 0.05 meters.
Tonga is located in the so -called Pacific Fire belt, one of the areas of the planet with the greatest seismic activity and where tremors of different intensity are produced daily.
The so -called Northern Lau, located between Fiyi, 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 razed by a tsunami caused by a violent eruption of an underwater volcano, which left at least three dead, the country incommunicado several days and affected more than 80% of its population.
