LOS ANGELES (LALATE) – A 7.0 Solomon Islands earthquake 2015 Tuesday hit near Papua New Guinea. The Solomon Islands earthquake today November 18, 2015 began just moments ago. Damage assessment is pending.
USGS indicates to news that a 7.0 Solomon Islands earthquake started just after 10:31 am PST Tuesday. The quake was shallow. Officials tell news that it started only 37 miles below sea level. As a result the quake could felt across the region. It was 53 miles of Dadali. It was 99 miles west of Honiara.
In July 2015, a 7.5 magnitude quake hit the region. But how common are quakes of this magnitude? USGS tell news that “the Kermadec-Tonga subduction zone generates many large earthquakes on the interface between the descending Pacific and overriding Australia plates, within the two plates themselves and, less frequently, near the outer rise of the Pacific plate east of the trench. Since 1900, 40 M7.5+ earthquakes have been recorded, mostly north of 30°S. However, it is unclear whether any of the few historic M8+ events that have occurred close to the plate boundary were underthrusting events on the plate interface, or were intraplate earthquakes. On September 29, 2009, one of the largest normal fault (outer rise) earthquakes ever recorded (M8.1) occurred south of Samoa, 40 km east of the Tonga trench, generating a tsunami that killed at least 180 people.”
On April 12 last year, a 7.6 struck the region. The same region has been struck by several strong quakes in recent years. In February 2013, a 7.1 magnitude quake hit the region. The quake began fourteen miles south of Lata in the Solomon Islands. The quake was roughly three hundred miles northwest of Luganville, Vanuatu. The quake was also roughly five hundred mile east of Honiara, Solomon Islands and northwest of Port-Vila, Vanuatu.