EARTHQUAKEM5.5

M5.5 earthquake near Levuka, Fiji

Map: the earthquake near Levuka, Fiji, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 5.5 earthquake struck 283 km (176 mi) east of Levuka, Fiji on Monday, October 26, 2026 at 10:13 UTC, at a depth of 642 km (399 mi), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Quakes this deep are usually felt widely but rarely cause damage.

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

MagnitudeM5.5
Depth642 km (399 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 26 10:13
Location18.28°S 178.01°W
Nearest townLevuka · 283 km
Energy3 kilotons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+1
Tsunami flagNo
PAGER alertGREEN
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 160 km (100 mi) from the boundary between the Australian and Tonga 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 642 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 a strike-slip earthquake: the two sides of the fault slid past each other sideways, like California’s San Andreas Fault.

Shaking and impact

The strongest shaking USGS estimates was intensity 1 on the Modified Mercalli scale: not felt. 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 5.5 released roughly the energy of 3 kilotons of TNT. That is about 178 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 1,000,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 2 hours after it, USGS recorded 1 smaller earthquake of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi). It was a magnitude 4.3 on October 26 at 10:30 UTC.

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 190 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 26, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

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