Very strong mag. 6.0 earthquake - Coral Sea, 29 km northwest of Emau Island, Shefa Province, Vanuatu, on Wednesday, 21 September 1955 at 06:39 (GMT)

Very strong mag. 6.0 earthquake - Coral Sea, 29 km northwest of Emau Island, Shefa Province, Vanuatu, on Wednesday, 21 September 1955 at 06:39 (GMT)

Very strong magnitude 6.0 earthquake at 15 km depth

Date & time: 21 Sep 1955 06:39:42 UTC
Magnitude: 6
Depth: 15.0 km
Epicenter latitude / longitude: 17.318°S / 168.276°E (Coral Sea, Vanuatu)
Nearest volcano: North Vate (19 km / 12 mi)
Nearby towns and cities:
47 km (29 mi) N of Port Vila (pop: 35,900) --> See nearby quakes!
168 km (104 mi) SE of Norsup (pop: 3,000) --> See nearby quakes!
233 km (145 mi) SSE of Luganville (pop: 13,400) --> See nearby quakes!
269 km (167 mi) NNW of Isangel (pop: 1,440) --> See nearby quakes!
284 km (176 mi) SSE of Port-Olry (pop: 1,950) --> See nearby quakes!
391 km (243 mi) SSE of Sola (pop: 1,170) --> See nearby quakes!
414 km (257 mi) NNE of Fayaoué (New Caledonia) (pop: 4,410) --> See nearby quakes!
414 km (257 mi) NNE of Wé (Lifou, New Caledonia) (pop: 10,400) --> See nearby quakes!
507 km (315 mi) NE of Poindimié (New Caledonia) (pop: 4,890) --> See nearby quakes!
549 km (341 mi) NE of Koné (New Caledonia) (pop: 4,570) --> See nearby quakes!
Primary data source: USGS (United States Geological Survey)
Estimated released energy: 6.3 x 1013 joules (17.5 gigawatt hours, equivalent to 15080 tons of TNT or 0.9 atomic bombs!) More info
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Data for the same earthquake reported by different agencies

Info: The more agencies report about the same quake and post similar data, the more confidence you can have in the data. It takes normally up to a few hours until earthquake parameters are calculated with near-optimum precision.
MagnitudeDepthLocationSource
M 6.015 kmVanuatuUSGS
Note: for quakes of 2012 and earlier, our database often contains only records from USGS.

User reports for this quake

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Aftershocks

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Recorded aftershocks, latest first (0 quakes):
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Earlier earthquakes in the same area

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