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Light mag. 4.5 earthquake - South Pacific Ocean, Fiji, on Friday, Mar 17, 2023 at 6:27 am (GMT +13) -

Light magnitude 4.5 earthquake at 546 km depth

16 Mar 17:44 UTC: First to report: GEONET (NZ) after 16 minutes.
16 Mar 21:40: Now using data updates from USGS
22 Mar 14:14: Magnitude recalculated from 4.8 to 4.5. Hypocenter depth recalculated from 552.7 to 546.2 km (from 343 to 339 mi). Epicenter location corrected by 2.1 km (1.3 mi) towards SE.

Earthquake details

Date & time	Mar 16, 2023 17:27:42 UTC -
Local time at epicenter	Friday, Mar 17, 2023 at 6:27 am (GMT +13)
Status	Confirmed
Magnitude	4.5
Depth	546.2 km
Epicenter latitude / longitude	23.7586°S / 179.5163°W (South Pacific Ocean, Fiji)
Antipode	23.759°N / 0.484°E
Shaking intensity	Not felt
Felt
Primary data source	USGS (United States Geological Survey)
Nearest volcano	###NEARESTVOLCANO2###
Nearby towns and cities
Weather at epicenter at time of quake
Estimated seismic energy released	3.5 x 10¹¹ joules (98.6 megawatt hours, equivalent to 84.8 tons of TNT) \| 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.	Depth	Location	Source
4.5	546 km	South of the Fiji Islands	USGS
5.1	600 km	New Zealand	GEONET (NZ)
4.8	553 km	South of Fiji Islands	RaspberryShake
4.3	561 km	South of Fiji Islands	GFZ

Most recent quakes Top 20 past 24 hrs Quakes in Fiji

Seismograms

Seismic station: Folaha (Nukuhetulu) (TNG1/YC network) | Distance from quake: 528 km / 328 mi | Show on map | Station Info

Seismic station Folaha (Nukuhetulu): vertical movement plot around time of quake (source: IRIS/BUD)

Seismogram (vertical component) around time of quake. Thin dotted red line indicates time of quake. Seismic waves arrive some time later, depending on distance. Bandpass filter applied: 0.2-5.0 Hz. Source: IRIS Buffer of Uniform Data (BUD) webtool

User reports for this quake (1)

User reports estimate the perceived ground shaking intensity according to the MMI (Modified Mercalli Intensity) scale.

Translate

Vanuatu (1427.9 km WNW of epicenter) [Map] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

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