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Very strong mag. 6.3 earthquake - 106 km west of Pulau Tutu Island, North Maluku, Indonesia, on Friday, March 16, 1973 at 00:51 GMT

Very strong mag. 6.3 earthquake - 106 km west of Pulau Tutu Island, North Maluku, Indonesia, on Friday, March 16, 1973 at 00:51 GMT

Very strong magnitude 6.3 earthquake at 18 km depth

1 Jan 00:00 UTC: First to report: USGS after 30 seconds.
Date & time: Mar 16, 1973 00:51:47 UTC
Magnitude: 6.3
Depth: 18.0 km
Epicenter latitude / longitude: 2.091°N / 126.643°E (Molucca Sea, Indonesia)
Antipode: 2.091°S / 53.357°W
Nearest volcano: Tobaru (125 km / 78 mi)
Nearby towns and cities:
157 km (98 mi) WNW of Tobelo (Kabupaten Halmahera Utara) (pop: 10,000) --> See nearby quakes!
166 km (103 mi) NNW of Ternate (pop: 101,700) --> See nearby quakes!
176 km (110 mi) ENE of Bitung (pop: 137,400) --> See nearby quakes!
182 km (113 mi) NW of Sofifi (Kota Tidore Kepulauan) (pop: 36,200) --> See nearby quakes!
197 km (123 mi) ENE of Laikit, Laikit II (Dimembe) (Kabupaten Minahasa Utara) (pop: 8,000) --> See nearby quakes!
211 km (131 mi) ENE of Manado (pop: 451,900) --> See nearby quakes!
211 km (131 mi) ENE of Tondano (Kabupaten Minahasa) (pop: 33,300) --> See nearby quakes!
222 km (138 mi) ENE of Tomohon (pop: 27,600) --> See nearby quakes!
391 km (243 mi) SSE of Sarangani (Davao del Sur, Philippines) (pop: 7,510) --> See nearby quakes!
434 km (270 mi) ENE of Gorontalo (pop: 144,200) --> See nearby quakes!
Primary data source: USGS (United States Geological Survey)
Estimated released energy: 1.8 x 1014 joules (49.4 gigawatt hours, equivalent to 42502 tons of TNT or 2.7 atomic bombs!) | about seismic energy
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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.
Mag.DepthLocationSource
6.318 kmMolucca Sea (Indonesia)USGS
Note: for quakes of 2012 and earlier, our database often contains only records from USGS.

User reports for this quake

User reports estimate the perceived ground shaking intensity according to the MMI (Modified Mercalli Intensity) scale.
There are no user reports for this quake.
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Aftershocks

[More info]

Recorded aftershocks, latest first (17 quakes)

Date and timeMag
Depth		LocationDetails
Aug 20, 1973 04:43
49 years ago
5.1

33 km		102 km NW of Pulau Tutu Island, North Maluku, IndonesiaMore
Aug 4, 1973 21:51
49 years ago
5.6

40 km		94 km W of Pulau Tutu Island, North Maluku, IndonesiaMore
Jul 11, 1973 04:15
49 years ago
4.6

85 km		99 km W of Pulau Laba Island, North Maluku, IndonesiaMore
Jun 22, 1973 05:00
49 years ago
5.0

33 km		53 km NW of Pulau Tutu Island, North Maluku, IndonesiaMore
May 4, 1973 11:50
49 years ago
4.9

33 km		126 km E of Pulau Tahulandang Island, North Sulawesi, IndonesiaMore
May 4, 1973 11:27
49 years ago
5.9

33 km		109 km NW of Pulau Tutu Island, North Maluku, IndonesiaMore
Apr 7, 1973 05:31
49 years ago
4.9

46 km		209 km E of Manado, North Sulawesi, IndonesiaMore
Mar 26, 1973 00:18
49 years ago
4.5

33 km		117 km E of Pulau Tahulandang Island, North Sulawesi, IndonesiaMore
Mar 20, 1973 01:37
49 years ago
4.5

11 km		108 km E of Pulau Tahulandang Island, North Sulawesi, IndonesiaMore
Mar 18, 1973 14:37
49 years ago
4.6

33 km		97 km W of Pulau Deherete Island, North Maluku, IndonesiaMore
Mar 18, 1973 12:04
49 years ago
5.1

38 km		122 km E of Bitung, North Sulawesi, IndonesiaMore
Mar 18, 1973 11:23
49 years ago
5.2

32 km		95 km NW of Pulau Tutu Island, North Maluku, IndonesiaMore
Mar 18, 1973 11:06
49 years ago
6.5

33 km		110 km W of Pulau Tutu Island, North Maluku, IndonesiaMore
Mar 16, 1973 03:40
49 years ago
5.6

33 km		150 km NE of Bitung, North Sulawesi, IndonesiaMore
Mar 16, 1973 02:12
49 years ago
5.5

47 km		113 km W of Pulau Tutu Island, North Maluku, IndonesiaMore
Mar 16, 1973 01:09
49 years ago
5.2

33 km		148 km NE of Bitung, North Sulawesi, IndonesiaMore
Mar 16, 1973 01:00
49 years ago
5.4

33 km		122 km E of Pulau Tahulandang Island, North Sulawesi, IndonesiaMore

Earlier earthquakes in the same area

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