Quake hits Pacific seabed near Vanuatu

CANBERRA, Australia – A powerful earthquake rocked the Pacific seabed near Vanuatu island early today, geologists said.

A tsunami warning was issued, but no large waves were immediately detected.

The 6.7-magnitude quake occurred at 1:48 a.m. about 250 miles northwest of the Vanuatu capital of Port Vila, according to the Web site of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Although Vanuatu is in the same geological zone as Indonesia’s Sumatra island, today’s temblor was not connected with the magnitude-9 quake that triggered Asia’s devastating Dec. 26 tsunami, according to Geoscience Australia seismologist Cvetan Sinadinovski.

“Earthquakes around this size occur about once a year” in the Vanuatu region, Sinadinovski said in a statement.

There have been no reports of damage from the quake, which was centered approximately 125 miles below the seabed, the seismologist said.