EARTHQUAKEM5.4

M5.4 earthquake near Luganville, Vanuatu

Map: the earthquake near Luganville, Vanuatu, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 5.4 earthquake struck 109 km (68 mi) east-northeast of Luganville, Vanuatu on Thursday, October 29, 2026 at 00:08 UTC, at a depth of 10 km (6 mi), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Shallow quakes like this one shake the surface hardest.

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

MagnitudeM5.4
Depth10 km (6 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 29 00:08
Location15.12°S 168.10°E
Nearest townLuganville · 109 km
Energy2 kilotons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+1
Tsunami flagNo
PAGER alertGREEN
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 199 km (123 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.

The red lines on the map are plate boundaries.

What kind of fault?

USGS’s analysis of the seismic waves shows it was a thrust (reverse) earthquake: one block of crust was pushed up and over another, as happens where plates collide.

Shaking and impact

The strongest shaking USGS estimates was intensity 6 on the Modified Mercalli scale: strong. About 3,302 people were exposed to moderate shaking or stronger (intensity 5 and up). 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 5.4 released roughly the energy of 2 kilotons of TNT. That is about 126 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 1,400,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 1 hour after it, USGS recorded 1 smaller earthquake of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi). It was a magnitude 4.9 on October 29 at 00:57 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 337 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 29, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

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