Shallow M6.3 earthquake hits south of Tonga
Image credit: TW/SAM, Google
A strong and shallow earthquake registered by the USGS as M6.3 hit south of Tonga at 21:24 UTC on March 19, 2022. The agency is reporting a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles). EMSC is reporting it as M5.8 at a depth of 60 km (37 miles).
The epicenter was located 457 km (284 miles) SSW of ‘Ohonua, Tonga, and 991 km (616 miles) SE of Suva, Fiji.
There are no people living within 100 km (62 miles).
There is no tsunami threat from this earthquake.

Image credit: TW/SAM, Google
Regional seismicity

Teo Blašković founded The Watchers in 2011 and edited it until 2026, covering seismic and volcanic activity, extreme weather, space weather and near-Earth objects. Articles on this page are his archive.
Earlier reporting
Nothing on Watchers was published in the last 24 hours. These are older articles.
- Deep M6.2 earthquake hits Vanuatu 43 km from Port-Olry at 143 km depth, no tsunami threat as USGS issues Green alert
- In 1920, a man out hunting on a farm in Namibia sat down on a strange black rock, scratched it with his knife and saw metal shine underneath. It was Hoba, a 60-ton meteorite, the largest ever found, and there is no crater around it Epicenter
- On December 26, 2004, a 10-year-old British girl on a Phuket beach recognized the frothing sea from a recent geography lesson, and her warning helped clear the beach before the tsunami struck Epicenter
- A volcano in Tonga exploded so loudly in 2022 that people in Alaska, 6,000 miles away, were woken by the booms. Hawaii, at half that distance, heard nothing at all Epicenter

