Tsunami warning

Potential tsunami threats were issued for Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre (PTWC) said.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) issued a warning of a marine threat for Lord Howe Island, off Australia's east coast, after the earthquake on Friday afternoon.

"So far, a 22-centimetre tsunami wave has been observed near New Caledonia," the BOM said in its warning notice on Friday afternoon.

He said that is the reason the tsunami warning was late on 15 January following the volcanic eruption in Tonga.

Usamate reassured that the Seismology Unit in the country monitors the likelihood of tsunamis every 24 hours.

He added that this month alone 70 earthquake activity was picked up by the unit, with 13 of those occurring locally.

“So because the whole system was oriented towards earthquakes when they had this volcanic activity that might lead to tsunami, they did not have the parameters to measure that this volcano leads to tsunami.”

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued a tsunami warning for coastlines within 300 kilometres of the epicentre, saying wave heights would vary depending on coastlines and that the initial wave may not be the largest.

It said small tsunamis had been detected and forecast waves up to one metre above the high tide level to hit parts of New Caledonia and smaller waves for Vanuatu.

"We are a little bit scared," said Wayan Rigault, communications manager at Hotel Nengone Village on the island of Mare, which is the closest landmass to the epicentre.