Strong M6.0 Earthquake Recorded Near 186 km NW of Port-Olry, Vanuatu

Updated: USGS Week upgraded this solution from M5.9 to M6.0. USGS Week reports M6.0 near 186 km NW of Port-Olry, Vanuatu, with a 10.0 km catalog depth.

Published 2026-10-19T08:15:26.048Z · Updated 2026-10-19T09:01:26.193Z

Update: the reporting agency changed this event's magnitude from M5.9 to M6.0. The current value is shown throughout this brief; the earlier value is retained here as revision history.

The event began at Mon, 19 Oct 2026 07:49:04 GMT. USGS Week reports magnitude 6.0, 10.0 km catalog depth, and coordinates -14.053, 165.676.

The catalog location label is 186 km NW of Port-Olry, Vanuatu; no separate nearest-city field was supplied with this solution. By catalog depth, this is a shallow event. The magnitude-derived energy estimate is 6.31e+13 joules, or about 15,080 tons of TNT equivalent; that calculation describes source energy, not local damage.

The current catalog entry does not include a public felt-report count. Other attached observation fields include catalog significance score 554. No official casualty or damage statement is attached to the normalized event evidence.

The USGS Week catalog currently marks the solution as reviewed. No station-count, phase-count, residual, gap, or uncertainty fields were supplied in the normalized record. 1 alternate network solution is retained for comparison.

The provider record does not carry a tsunami flag at publication time. Magnitude, depth, and location can change as monitoring networks add observations and review the solution.