M5.5 earthquake 76 km WNW of Pangai, Tonga
A magnitude 5.5 earthquake struck 76 km WNW of Pangai, Tonga on Tue, Jun 23, 2015, 9:59 PM GMT+13 (08:59 UTC), 138 km (86 mi) below the surface.
A larger quake followed: M5.6 55 km WNW of Pangai, Tonga. This one was a foreshock.
Map
Where this earthquake was located, with the others nearby. Select one for its page.
The earthquake
- Magnitude
- 5.5 (Mwb, body-wave moment), moderate
- Magnitude from
- USGS National Earthquake Information Center
- Local time
- UTC
- 2015-06-23 08:59:55 UTC
- Depth
- 138.0 km (85.7 mi), intermediate-depth
- Epicenter
- 19.569° S, 175.040° W
- Region
- Tonga
- Felt reports
- 1
- Strongest shaking
- IV, light shaking
- PAGER alert
- Green
- 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5.5 | Mwb, body-wave moment | USGS National Earthquake Information Center | Preferred · Reviewed · ±0.083 · 14 stations |
| 5.42 | Mw, moment | ISC-GEM global catalog | Final · ±0.1 |
| 5.4 | Mwc, centroid moment | USGS National Earthquake Information Center | Moment tensor · Reviewed |
What happened
The USGS’s account of the effects of this earthquake.
Felt at Nuku`alofa.
From the USGS event page for us10002l2m. U.S. Geological Survey text and figures are in the public domain.
Shaking
The USGS ShakeMap: shaking estimated from seismic stations and the quake’s size, on the Modified Mercalli intensity scale.
- Strongest estimated
- IV, light shaking
- Map
- Automatic
Did you feel it?
1 person reported to the USGS what they felt; the strongest reported shaking was II, weak shaking.
Estimated impact
The USGS PAGER system estimates deaths and economic losses from the shaking and the population and buildings exposed to it.
- Alert level
- Green: little or no damage or loss of life expected
Fault motion and ground failure
How the rock slipped, from the moment tensor, and the USGS estimate of landslides and liquefaction.
- Faulting
- Normal
- Moment magnitude
- 5.4 Mwc
- Nodal plane 1
- Strike 32°, dip 68°, rake -114°
- Nodal plane 2
- Strike 263°, dip 32°, rake -44°
How well it is located
Reviewed by a seismologist.
- Location uncertainty
- About 7.9 km horizontally, 1.8 km in depth
- Magnitude uncertainty
- ±0.08
- Depth from
- From modeling of broad-band P waveforms
- Station coverage gap
- 15°
- Stations used
- 695
Nearest places
Distance and direction from each place to the epicenter, with its forecast.
Nearby
Within 100 km, magnitude 2.5 and up: 8 in the 60 days after this one and 4 in the 30 days before it.
After
- 4.9105 km WSW of Neiafu, Tonga · 4097 days ago · 137 km deep · 70 km away
- 4.8167 km WNW of Pangai, Tonga · 4088 days ago · 226 km deep · 92 km away
- 4.3106 km WSW of Pangai, Tonga · 4086 days ago · 231 km deep · 63 km away
- 4.4102 km W of Pangai, Tonga · 4080 days ago · 209 km deep · 40 km away
- 4.1152 km NW of Pangai, Tonga · 4079 days ago · 228 km deep · 85 km away
- 4.5131 km W of Pangai, Tonga · 4078 days ago · 230 km deep · 67 km away
- 4.9147 km WNW of Pangai, Tonga · 4076 days ago · 10 km deep · 73 km away
- 5.655 km WNW of Pangai, Tonga · 4074 days ago · 46 km deep · 21 km away · felt by 2
Before
Earthquakes todayTonga earthquakesLive radar here
Sources
From the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program and its partner networks, event us10002l2m (also filed as gcmt20150623085954, iscgem610635428). Read Mon, Oct 5, 2026, 4:36 AM UTC.