SUVA: An undersea earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale jolted Tonga at 9.07am local time on Friday, Xinhua News reported the US Geological Survey as saying.
The epicentre, with a depth of 41.00 km, was initially determined to be at 15.0000 degrees south latitude and 174.8000 degrees west longitude.
The epicentre is some 355 km westsouth of Samoa’s capital of Apia and 415 km north of Tonga’s second largest town of Neiafu. There have been no reports of casualties or property damage so far.
The shallow tremor did not trigger a tsunami alert.
Earthquakes are common on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where continental plates in the Earth’s crust meet.