Moderate mag. 5.3 earthquake - South Pacific Ocean, 132 km east of Nuku\'alofa, Tongatapu, on Thursday, 20 October 1983 at 02:05 (GMT)

Moderate mag. 5.3 earthquake - South Pacific Ocean, 132 km east of Nuku\'alofa, Tongatapu, on Thursday, 20 October 1983 at 02:05 (GMT)

Moderate magnitude 5.3 earthquake at 70 km depth

Date & time: 20 Oct 1983 02:05:41 UTC
Magnitude: 5.3
Depth: 69.7 km
Epicenter latitude / longitude: 20.91°S / 173.951°W (South Pacific Ocean, Tonga)
Nearest volcano: Feinga Seamount (152 km / 94 mi)
Nearby towns and cities:
114 km (71 mi) ENE of ‘Ohonua (Ohonua) (pop: 1,240) --> See nearby quakes!
118 km (74 mi) ENE of Kolonga (pop: 1,100) --> See nearby quakes!
129 km (80 mi) SSE of Pangai (pop: 1,740) --> See nearby quakes!
132 km (82 mi) E of Nuku'alofa (pop: 22,400) --> See nearby quakes!
132 km (82 mi) E of Nuku‘alofa (pop: 22,400) --> See nearby quakes!
251 km (156 mi) S of Neiafu (pop: 4,320) --> See nearby quakes!
469 km (292 mi) WSW of Alofi (Niue) (pop: 624) --> See nearby quakes!
473 km (294 mi) WSW of Hakupu (Niue) (pop: 221) --> See nearby quakes!
482 km (300 mi) WSW of Mutalau (Niue) (pop: 133) --> See nearby quakes!
Primary data source: USGS (United States Geological Survey)
Estimated released energy: 5.6 x 1012 joules (1.56 gigawatt hours, equivalent to 1344 tons of TNT) 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 5.370 kmTongaUSGS
Note: for quakes of 2012 and earlier, our database often contains only records from USGS.

User reports for this quake

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