EARTHQUAKEM6.1

M6.1 earthquake near Port-Olry, Vanuatu

Map: the earthquake near Port-Olry, Vanuatu, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck 25 km (16 mi) east-northeast of Port-Olry, Vanuatu on Sunday, October 25, 2026 at 02:24 UTC, at a depth of 116 km (72 mi), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. At this intermediate depth, shaking spreads out before it reaches the surface.

USGS’s PAGER impact estimate is GREEN: little or no damage expected.

4 people reported feeling it to USGS “Did You Feel It?”.

MagnitudeM6.1
Depth116 km (72 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 25 02:24
Location15.00°S 167.30°E
Nearest townPort-Olry · 25 km
Energy21 kilotons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+0
Tsunami flagNo
PAGER alertGREEN
Felt reports4
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 112 km (70 mi) from the boundary between the Pacific and Australian plates. Most earthquakes happen along plate boundaries like this one, where the pieces of Earth’s outer shell collide, pull apart or grind past each other. Stress builds up over years until the rock suddenly slips. At 116 km down, it most likely broke inside a plate that is sinking into the mantle beneath its neighbor, in what geologists call a subduction zone.

The red lines on the map are plate boundaries.

What kind of fault?

USGS’s analysis of the seismic waves shows it was an oblique earthquake: the fault slipped partly sideways and partly as one block dropped down as the crust stretched.

Shaking and impact

The strongest shaking USGS estimates was intensity 4 on the Modified Mercalli scale: light. USGS’s PAGER system estimates it most likely caused no deaths (90 percent probability). Early estimates are revised as reports come in.

How strong was it?

Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step releases about 32 times more energy. This magnitude 6.1 released roughly the energy of 21 kilotons of TNT, about as much as the Hiroshima atomic bomb. That is about 1,400 times the energy of a magnitude 4.0, a quake people nearby feel but that rarely causes damage. The strongest earthquake ever recorded, magnitude 9.5 in Chile in 1960, released about 130,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 25 hours after it, USGS recorded no smaller earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi).

Outside the United States, USGS mainly lists quakes of about magnitude 4 and up, so smaller aftershocks there are undercounted.

Earthquake history here

Before this earthquake, USGS had recorded 346 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or larger within 300 km (186 mi) since 1900. The strongest:

Official details, updates and the shaking map: USGS event page.

See every earthquake on October 25, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

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