Powerful quake near Fiji; no damage reported

A powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck under the South Pacific near Fiji, but it was so deep that no rumbling was felt in the island nation.

A powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck under the South Pacific near Fiji on Tuesday, but it was so deep that no rumbling was felt in the island nation, scientists said. No injuries or damage were reported after the temblor, and the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said it did not expect the quake to trigger a damaging Pacific-wide tsunami.

The temblor hit 579 kilometers below the earth's surface at 2213 GMT about 100 kilometers north-northeast of the remote Fijian island of Ndoi, the US Geological Survey said.

HT Image

Lasarusa Veutibau, a seismologist at Fiji's Mines and Resources Department, said the quake was too deep to have been felt anywhere in the Fiji islands.

Fiji is regularly hit by earthquakes as its 332 islands -Pacific.