Tonga earthquake - 8.0 on richter - possible tsunami?

The pacific island of Tonga has suffered an earthquake measuring 8.0 on the richter scale, possibly triggering a tsunami...

It might (if it turns into a Tsunami), also hit New Zealand...

Fingers crossed it turns out not to have affected that many...

BBC News

Sky News

CNN

Think the only affected area now might be Tonga itself. Chances of a tsunami are generally pretty slim unless there's a significant near surface vertical movement on the two plates involved and underlying water - that's what happened with the Sri Lanka one. Most have their epicentres too deep to cause that.

We had one measuring a 7.0 in Mozambique close to our border earlier this year and we hardly even felt it here.

The last I checked, it hadn't really done anything major except some waves off another island. Fingers crossed that that's all we're dealing with

The latest from Yahoo News: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060503/ap_on_re_au_an/tonga_earthquake

i haven't heard any real details about this yet. if it is bad, we should know mre here very soon. oz will then go and help out again like we did in indonesia.

7.7 on the richter scale. no reports of significant damage or csualties in tonga. tsunami alert has beenn cancelled.

All I can say is thank goodness there wasn't any loss of life

NOOLigan wrote: 7.7 on the richter scale. no reports of significant damage or csualties in tonga. tsunami alert has beenn cancelled.

Whew! What a relief!

Sky News made COCKS of themselves at about 1800. Literally sat waiting for some sort of disaster to report.

Like one really long, unfunny episode of The Day Today.

Bit of a WASHOUT then?

CNN's Anderson Cooper is already on the scene...to report the non-story.

Let's see you emote over nothing, pretty-boy!

Anybody seen Keef?

[black]Diamond[/black] wrote: Sky News made COCKS of themselves at about 1800. Literally sat waiting for some sort of disaster to report.

Like one really long, unfunny episode of The Day Today.

Yup, that was I was actually watching at the time - the most interesting conversation they had was a guy phoning in from Tonga who was basically saying that he'd felt an earthquake but wasn't near the sea so couldn't comment on any waves! :p

The interview with the Tonga copper was excellent. After a couple of half-arsed attempts at pronouncing his name, the permataned presenter just called him 'Officer' and grilled him about whether he was scared.

At the end of the interview, once it became PAINFULLY obvious that there was no big wave coming, and that this guy was on the wrong side of the island to see it anyway, he was allowed to go.

The presenter expressed relief that nothing bad appeared to be happening, but you could taste the dissapointment in his voice.