Powerful earthquake rocks Vanuatu archipelago

January 13, 2023

An earthquake with the likely of 7.0 struck the Oceanian nation of Vanuatu at 11:30 PM  Saturday (10:30 UTC Sunday). There were no reports of casualties.

A tsunami warning for "waves reaching 0.3 to one meter [3.9 feet] above the level" along the coasts of Vanuatu, New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands issued by the United States Geological Survey after the quake was quickly lifted after none materialized.

The French Embassy in also issued a statement on its Facebook page urging residents to.

22-year-old college student Kayson Pore, who lives on Vanuatu's largest island, told Agence France-Presse: "We were right on the sea, we were looking for crab on the coast," when he experienced a "very huge" quake. "We ran for our lives and then we ran to our homes […] people were moving to higher ground" to avoid a tsunami.

Some residents reported damaged items on social media. Pore said the quake had knocked over and shattered cups in his kitchen, but that he saw no serious damage to homes in his town of 1,000,.

The New Zealand National Emergency Management Agency said they did not expect any tsunamis to affect their coast.

The Vanuatuan islands lie along the convergent boundary of the and  s, part of the  along which seismic activity frequently occurs.

In November, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake shook the Solomon Islands but did not cause serious casualties or destruction. In 2018, 4,300 people died or went missing in a magnitude 7.5 earthquake on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia.

Last year's, which assesses the disaster risk of 193 countries, ranked Vanuatu 49th on its.