Tonga earthquakes

M4.5 earthquake 161 km WNW of Hihifo, Tonga

A magnitude 4.5 earthquake struck 161 km WNW of Hihifo, Tonga on Sun, Oct 9, 2016, 9:46 PM GMT-12 (09:46 UTC), 10 km (6 mi) below the surface.

A larger quake followed: M6.1 127 km WNW of Hihifo, Tonga. This one was a foreshock.

Map

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The earthquake

Magnitude: 4.5 (mb, body-wave), light
Magnitude from: USGS National Earthquake Information Center
Local time: Sun, Oct 9, 2016, 9:46 PM GMT-12
UTC: 2016-10-10 09:46:02 UTC
Depth: 10.0 km (6.2 mi), shallow
Epicenter: 15.595° S, 175.254° W
Region: Tonga
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
4.5	mb, body-wave	USGS National Earthquake Information Center	Preferred · Reviewed · ±0.078 · 48 stations
5.13	Mw, moment	ISC-GEM global catalog	Final · ±0.1

Did you feel it?

No one has reported feeling this quake to the USGS.

How well it is located

Reviewed by a seismologist.

Location uncertainty: About 14.7 km horizontally, 1.9 km in depth
Magnitude uncertainty: ±0.08
Depth from: Operator assigned
Station coverage gap: 137°
Stations used: 26

Nearby

Within 100 km, magnitude 1.5 and up: 6 in the 60 days after this one and 1 in the 30 days before it.

After

Before

5.6127 km WNW of Hihifo, TongaMon, Oct 10, 10:35 PM GMT+14 · 3646 days ago · 10 km deep · 53 km away

Earthquakes today Tonga earthquakes Live radar here

Sources

From the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program and its partner networks, event us20007d2d (also filed as iscgem609780217). Read Sun, Oct 4, 2026, 2:01 AM UTC.