{"id":12673,"date":"2018-12-04T22:03:33","date_gmt":"2018-12-05T06:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=12673"},"modified":"2018-12-04T22:05:10","modified_gmt":"2018-12-05T06:05:10","slug":"powerful-new-caledonia-earthquake-triggers-tsunami-warning-evacuation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=12673","title":{"rendered":"Powerful New Caledonia earthquake triggers tsunami warning, evacuation"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A tsunami warning has been issued for all of the Pacific island of New Caledonia, after a shallow 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck off the country\u2019s coast, prompting warnings that hazardous tsunami waves up to three metres high could reach\u00a0New Caledonia<\/a>\u00a0and Vanuatu.<\/p>\n

US seismologists said the shallow and powerful\u00a07.5-magnitude earthquake<\/a>struck off the Pacific islands of New Caledonia, triggering a tsunami warning for the area.<\/p>\n

“Based on the preliminary earthquake parameters hazardous tsunami waves are possible for coasts located within 1000 kilometres of the earthquake epicentre,”\u00a0the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.<\/p>\n

The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the earthquake struck southeast of Loyalty Islands,\u00a0New Caledonia at a depth of 10 kilometres.<\/p>\n

The earthquake made impact at 3.18pm local time in New Caledonia.<\/p>\n

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the French overseas territory.<\/p>\n

Evacuation ordered<\/h3>\n

New Caledonian authorities urged people to get to higher ground immediately.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t have time to prepare your evacuation, get more than 300m away from the coast and\/or get to a height of more than 12m,\u201d warned the Directorate for Civil Protection and Risk Management of New Caledonia (DSCGR).<\/p>\n

The\u00a0DSCGR urged people to leave their children in the care of teachers at school and avoid driving vehicles or tying up the emergency phone lines.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for French mining and metals group Eramet, which operates the Doniambo nickel plant in the main harbor of Noumea, said it had enacted its tsunami alert process.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe procedure is to ask people who work near the sea to move higher up,\u201d he said, adding that he had felt the quake, describing it a strong but not long-lasting shaking.<\/p>\n

Tsunami waves spotted<\/h3>\n

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center\u00a0warns<\/a>\u00a0that three-metre high tsunami waves are possible on some coasts along Vanuatu and New Caledonia.<\/p>\n

The warning urged evacuation for threatened coastal areas, saying\u00a0“tsunami waves have been observed”.<\/p>\n

The warning identified vulnerable areas including Vanuatu’s Anatom Island, Esperitu Santo; New Caledonia’s Noumea and Fiji’s Suva. Estimated arrival times were provided, with the earliest starting at 3.42pm local time.<\/p>\n

Seismologists in Australia said they are monitoring the earthquake.<\/p>\n

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View image on Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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A tsunami warning has been issued...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12673"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12675,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12673\/revisions\/12675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}