![\"7.7-magnitude-earthquake-strikes-in-South-Pacific-rapid-news-rapidnews-dailyrapidnews\"](\"https:\/\/dailyrapidnews.com\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/7.7-magnitude-earthquake-strikes-in-South-Pacific-rapid-news-rapidnews-dailyrapidnews.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck in the South Pacific has generated a tsunami, the Australian weather agency said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
“Tsunami confirmed,” the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said in a tweet, as it warned of a threat to Lord Howe Island, which is about 550 kilometres (340 miles) east of Australia’s mainland.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The quake struck at just after midnight today local time (1320 GMT Wednesday) about 415 kilometres (258 miles) east of Vao in New Caledonia at a depth of 10 kilometres, according to USGS.<\/p>\n
\u201cHazardous tsunami waves from this earthquake are possible within the next three hours,\u201d the NWS Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.<\/p>\n
Waves reaching between 0.3 and one metre above the tide level are possible for some coasts of Fiji, New Zealand and Vanuatu, the centre said.<\/p>\n
Smaller waves were forecast for other nations in the region including Australia, the Cook Islands and American Samoa.<\/p>\n
There were no initial reports of casualties or damage from the quake, which was initially recorded by USGS at magnitude 7.5 before being revised to 7.7.<\/p>\n
The Pacific \u201cRing of Fire\u201d, where tectonic plates collide, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck in the South Pacific has generated a tsunami, the Australian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n