Light earthquake: M4.4 quake has struck near Houma in Tonga

A light earthquake with magnitude 4.4 (ml/mb) was detected on Friday, 251 km WNW of Houma, Tonga (156 miles). The epicenter was at a depth of 485.414 km (302 miles). The temblor was detected at 03:01:12 / 3:01 am (local time epicenter). Exact time and date of event in UTC/GMT: 29/08/25 / 2025-08-29 03:01:12 / August 29, 2025 @ 3:01 am. Exact location of event, depth 485.414 km, -177.5825° West, -20.4072° South. Unique identifier: us7000qrt1. Ids that are associated to the event: us7000qrt1. A tsunami warning has not been issued (Does not indicate if a tsunami actually did or will exist).

In the past 24 hours, there have been one, in the last 10 days two, in the past 30 days four and in the last 365 days one hundred and seven earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater that have been detected nearby. Earthquakes 4.0 to 5.0 are often felt, but only causes minor damage. Each year there are an estimated 13,000 light quakes in the world.

Did you feel it?

How did you respond? Did any furniture slide, topple over, or become displaced? Leave a comment or report about activity, shaking and damage 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: 251 km WNW of Houma, Tonga.

Houma Tonga

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Parameter	Value	Description
Magnitude	4.4 mb	The magnitude for the event.
Longitude	-177.5825° West	Decimal degrees longitude. Negative values for western longitudes.
Latitude	-20.4072° South	Decimal degrees latitude. Negative values for southern latitudes.
Depth	485.414 km	Depth of the event in kilometers.
Place	251 km WNW of Houma, Tonga	Textual description of named geographic region near to the event. This may be a city name, or a Flinn-Engdahl Region name.
Time	2025-08-29 03:01:12	Time when the event occurred. UTC/GMT
Updated	2025-08-29 03:17:13	Time when the event was most recently updated. UTC/GMT
Timezone offset		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	298	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	36	The total number of Number of seismic stations which reported P- and S-arrival times for this earthquake.
Horizontal Distance	4.862	Horizontal distance from the epicenter to the nearest station (in degrees).
Root Mean Square	0.78 sec	The root-mean-square (RMS) travel time residual, in sec, using all weights.
Azimuthal Gap	97	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	us7000qrt1	Id of event.
Event Code	7000qrt1	An identifying code assigned by, and unique from, the corresponding source for the event.
Event IDS	,us7000qrt1,	A comma-separated list of event ids that are associated to an event.

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Light earthquake: M4.4 quake has struck near Houma in Tonga

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