Light earthquake: M4.9 quake has struck near Lakatoro in Vanuatu

A light earthquake with magnitude 4.9 (ml/mb) was reported 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Lakatoro in Vanuatu on Friday. Exact location of event, longitude 167.1934 East, latitude -16.2776 South, depth = 37.379 km. A tsunami warning has not been issued (Does not indicate if a tsunami actually did or will exist). Exact time and date of earthquake 12/09/25 / 2025-09-12 06:05:25 / September 12, 2025 @ 6:05 am UTC/GMT. The earthquake occurred at a depth of 37.379 km (23 miles). Event id: us7000qvmt. Ids that are associated to the earthquake: us7000qvmt. The temblor was picked up at 06:05:25 / 6:05 am (local time epicenter).

Nearest city/cities or towns, with min 5000 pop, to epicentrum/hypocenter was Luganville, Lakatoro. Epicenter of the event was 84 km (52 miles) from Luganville (c. 13 400 pop), 31 km (19 miles) from Lakatoro (c. 700 pop). Country/countries that might be effected, Vanuatu (c. 222 000 pop).

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

Questions or comments?

How did you react? Was there any damage to buildings? Leave a comment or report about shaking, activity and damage at your home, city and country. This data comes from the USGS Earthquake Notification Service. Read more about the earthquake, Seismometer information, Distances, Parameters, Date-Time, Location and details about this quake, that has occurred near: 30 km SW of Lakatoro, Vanuatu.

More information

Parameter	Value	Description
Magnitude	4.9 mb	The magnitude for the event.
Longitude	167.1934° East	Decimal degrees longitude. Negative values for western longitudes.
Latitude	-16.2776° South	Decimal degrees latitude. Negative values for southern latitudes.
Depth	37.379 km	Depth of the event in kilometers.
Place	30 km SW of Lakatoro, Vanuatu	Textual description of named geographic region near to the event. This may be a city name, or a Flinn-Engdahl Region name.
Time	2025-09-12 06:05:25	Time when the event occurred. UTC/GMT
Updated	2025-09-12 06:24:57	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	369	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	22	The total number of Number of seismic stations which reported P- and S-arrival times for this earthquake.
Horizontal Distance	0.826	Horizontal distance from the epicenter to the nearest station (in degrees).
Root Mean Square	0.68 sec	The root-mean-square (RMS) travel time residual, in sec, using all weights.
Azimuthal Gap	145	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	us7000qvmt	Id of event.
Event Code	7000qvmt	An identifying code assigned by, and unique from, the corresponding source for the event.
Event IDS	,us7000qvmt,	A comma-separated list of event ids that are associated to an event.

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Light earthquake: M4.9 quake has struck near Lakatoro in Vanuatu

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