Pre-dawn tremor wakes-up Nuku'alofa

A strong 7.4Mw tremor rattled Nuku'alofa before dawn for over a minute starting at 6:19am. Two aftershocks, including 6.6Mw were felt in Nuku'alofa after 10:00am. The first 7.4Mw earthquake was centred south of Fiji and Tonga at a depth of about 170km-208km in an area of the Tonga-Kermadec arc that has frequent moderate to large deep earthquakes. The deep earthquakes are generally less hazardous than shallow earthquakes.