The United States Geological Survey stated Friday that a magnitude-5.7 earthquake rocked the Big Island of Hawaii, with mild shaking observed in Honolulu, nearly 200 miles distant.
The earthquake occurred about 10 a.m. local time and was centred 11 miles south of Naalehu, Hawaii, at a depth of six miles. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said no tsunami warnings were expected.
According to the USGS Did You Feel It? page, some shaking occurred in Honolulu on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Several aftershocks occurred in the same location.
There were no initial reports of extensive damage.
Big Island Mayor Mitch Roth was in Honolulu for a cardiology appointment.
“All of a sudden I felt like I was getting dizzy,” he recalled, initially thinking it was the operation but then realising it was an earthquake. He quickly called his emergency management staff.
“We’ll probably start hearing about damage in the next hour to an hour,” Roth said, noting that it was “a good sized earthquake” and that, from what he’s heard, there is no tsunami risk.
Roth stated that he was going to the Honolulu airport to try to get an earlier flight back to the Big Island.
Julia Neal, the owner of Pahala Plantation Cottages, stated that a mirror and brass lamp collapsed during some violent shaking. “We have a lot of the old wooden plantations homes and so they were rattling pretty loudly.”
Derek Nelson, manager of the Kona Canoe Club restaurant at the Kona Inn Shopping Village in Kona, an oceanside hamlet on the island’s western side, said everyone felt it “big time,” but there was no damage.
“I mean, it shook us so hard that our knees wobbled somewhat. “It shook every window in the village,” he explained.