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Light World Earthquakes Magnitude 4-4.9

Light earthquake, 4.6 mag was detected near Nuku`alofa in Tonga


Earthquake location -20.7463S, -175.2191WA light earthquake with magnitude 4.6 (ml/mb) was reported 42 kilometers (26 miles) from Nuku`alofa in Tonga on Saturday. The epicenter of the earthquake was roughly 78.79 km (49 miles) below the earth’s surface. A tsunami warning has not been issued (Does not indicate if a tsunami actually did or will exist). Event id: us20008hg1. Ids that are associated to the earthquake: us20008hg1. The temblor was reported at 08:46:55 / 8:46 am (local time epicenter). Global date and time of event UTC/GMT: 21/01/17 / 2017-01-21 20:46:55 / January 21, 2017 @ 8:46 pm. Exact location, longitude -175.2191° West, latitude -20.7463° South, depth = 78.79 km.

Closest city/cities or villages, with min 5000 pop, to hypocenter/epicentrum was ‘Ohonua, Nuku‘alofa. The epicenter was 44 km (27 miles) from Nuku‘alofa (c. 22 400 pop), 71 km (44 miles) from ‘Ohonua (c. 1 200 pop). Close country/countries, Tonga (c. 123 000 pop) (That might be effected).

In the past 24 hours, there have been two, in the last 10 days two, in the past 30 days two and in the last 365 days twenty-seven earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater that has struck near. There are an estimated 13,000 light earthquakes in the world each year. Earthquakes 4.0 to 5.0 are often felt, but only causes minor damage.

How would you describe the shaking?

What was your situation during the earthquake? Leave a comment or report about damage, shaking and activity at your home, city and country. The information in this article comes from the USGS Earthquake Notification Service. Read more about the earthquake, Seismometer information, Distances, Parameters, Date-Time, Location and details about this quake, detected near: 42 km N of Nuku`alofa, Tonga.

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More information

Parameter Value Description
Magnitude 4.6 mb The magnitude for the event.
Longitude -175.2191° West Decimal degrees longitude. Negative values for western longitudes.
Latitude -20.7463° South Decimal degrees latitude. Negative values for southern latitudes.
Depth 78.79 km Depth of the event in kilometers.
Place 42km N of Nuku`alofa, Tonga Textual description of named geographic region near to the event. This may be a city name, or a Flinn-Engdahl Region name.
Time 2017-01-21 20:46:55 Time when the event occurred. UTC/GMT
Updated 2017-02-16 00:03:21 Time when the event was most recently updated. UTC/GMT
Timezone offset -720 Timezone offset from UTC in minutes at the event epicenter.
Felt The total number of felt reports
CDI The maximum reported intensity for the event.
MMI The maximum estimated instrumental intensity for the event.
Alert Level The alert level from the PAGER earthquake impact scale. Green, Yellow, Orange or Red.
Review Status reviewed Indicates whether the event has been reviewed by a human.
Tsunami 0 This flag is set to "1" for large events in oceanic regions and "0" otherwise. The existence or value of this flag does not indicate if a tsunami actually did or will exist.
SIG 326 A number describing how significant the event is. Larger numbers indicate a more significant event.
Network us The ID of a data contributor. Identifies the network considered to be the preferred source of information for this event.
Sources ,us, A comma-separated list of network contributors.
Number of Stations Used The total number of Number of seismic stations which reported P- and S-arrival times for this earthquake.
Horizontal Distance 5.248 Horizontal distance from the epicenter to the nearest station (in degrees).
Root Mean Square 0.99 sec The root-mean-square (RMS) travel time residual, in sec, using all weights.
Azimuthal Gap 100 The largest azimuthal gap between azimuthally adjacent stations (in degrees).
Magnitude Type mb The method or algorithm used to calculate the preferred magnitude for the event.
Event Type earthquake Type of seismic event.
Event ID us20008hg1 Id of event.
Event Code 20008hg1 An identifying code assigned by, and unique from, the corresponding source for the event.
Event IDS ,us20008hg1, A comma-separated list of event ids that are associated to an event.

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