Magnitude 5.3 Earthquake Strikes Hawaii

The magnitude of an earthquake off the southeast coast of Hawaii was a reported 5.3.

Tuesday afternoon's earthquake was centered about 34 miles (55 kilometers) southeast of Pahala on the Big Island, at a depth of about 25 miles (40 kilometers). Officials said it was not expected to generate a tsunami.

"The earth is very sound down there, there's not a lot of cracks, therefore waves travel very efficiently through the material," USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory Seismic Network manager, Wes Thele said.

Hawaii County Civil Defense Director Darryl Oliveira said there are no immediate reports of damage.

The USGS reported earlier that the quake's magnitude was 5.6.

People as far away as Maui and Oahu reported weak shaking to the USGS. The Oahu Department of Emergency Management said some areas may have experienced strong shaking.

Kevin Dayton, the executive assistant to the mayor, said he felt a large jolt in the county building in Hilo. A stock clerk at the Mizuno Superette grocery store in Pahala said the shelves rocked but nothing fell from them.

Hawaii is prone to earthquakes and tsunamis, which generally surface together. Fortunately, in this case, they did not. Much of the early record of Hawaiian earthquakes comes from the diary of Mrs. Sarah J. Lyman, a missionary's wife at Hilo, on the Big Island of Hawaii. Mrs. Lyman began her account in 1833 and continued it until her death in 1885; this record was then continued for eleven more years by her descendants. About four or five earthquakes per year were reported. In addition to the tectonic and volcanic local earthquakes, Hawaii is a frequent victim of tsunamis from distant earthquakes. The Catalogue of Tsunamis in the Hawaiian Islands by George Pararas-Carayannis list 85 tsunamis since the earliest reported in 1813 or 1814, of which 15 have caused significant damage. Only four of these, including the 1868 earthquake and tsunami described above, have originated near Hawaii. Most have orginated in the northwest Pacific and near South American coasts.