M5.8 earthquake 147 km SSE of Lata, Solomon Islands

A magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck 147 km SSE of Lata, Solomon Islands on Sat, Jan 31, 1981, 1:29 PM GMT+11 (02:29 UTC), 68 km (42 mi) below the surface.

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The earthquake

Magnitude: 5.8 (mb, body-wave), moderate
Magnitude from: USGS National Earthquake Information Center
Local time: Sat, Jan 31, 1981, 1:29 PM GMT+11
UTC: 1981-01-31 02:29:38 UTC
Depth: 68.0 km (42.3 mi), shallow
Epicenter: 11.905° S, 166.421° E
Region: Solomon Islands
Tsunami flag: No
Status: Reviewed by a seismologist

Magnitude estimates

Different scales measure different things and differ by a few tenths. The USGS marks one as preferred, and it is the one this page uses.

Mag.	Scale	Computed by	Notes
5.8	mb, body-wave	USGS National Earthquake Information Center	Preferred · Reviewed
5.63	Mw, moment	ISC-GEM global catalog	Final · ±0.1
5.6	Mwc, centroid moment	Global CMT project	Preliminary

Did you feel it?

No one has reported feeling this quake to the USGS.

How well it is located

Reviewed by a seismologist.

Depth from: CONSTRAINED_BY_DEPTH_PHASES
Stations used: 98

Nearby

Within 100 km, magnitude 2.8 and up: 7 in the 60 days after this one and 2 in the 30 days before it.

After

Before

Earthquakes today Solomon Islands earthquakes Live radar here

Sources

From the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program and its partner networks, event usp0001bza (also filed as gcmtb013181a, gcmt19810131022938, iscgem633370). Read Fri, Oct 2, 2026, 2:15 AM UTC.