A sigh of relief as no tsunami produced by yesterday’s earthquake

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The American Samoa community was once again reminded of where it lives, where it’s located — in the Blue Nation, surrounded by an ocean that contains active volcanoes — when early yesterday morning a strong earthquake that occurred near Savai’i island in Samoa woke people up.

And many local residents, and family members off-island, breathed a sigh of relief that the strong quake didn’t generated a tsunami.

“The earthquake was really strong and some of my family members were just getting up for school and work,” said a Nuuuli resident, who lives along the shoreline.  “And just like my neighbors we were all waiting for the siren to evacuate to higher grounds.” (See Just Asking… in today’s issue for ASDAS response to whether or not the siren warning system is working.)

And this was the same message that residents shared with others on social media postings, which were quickly picked up by family members and friends off-island. Residents say the quake was very strong.

Around 5:08a.m yesterday, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii issued a bulletin for the territory, saying that an earthquake with preliminary magnitude of 7.4 occurred about 176 miles southwest of Savaii island in Samoa around 5:02a.m. on Wednesday, May 10 in American Samoa.

And based on all available data, “there is not tsunami threat to American Samoa from this earthquake,” the Center said and noted that some areas of the territory may have experienced very strong shaking.

The Center recommended that residents be observant and exercise normal caution if you are near or in the ocean. “Otherwise... no action is required,” it says.

The Center, issued a separate bulletin for parts of the U.S. coastal region including Hawaii for the same quake — which actually occurred within the Tongan islands region. And based on all data, there was no tsunami threat because the earthquake was located “too deep inside the earth” — a depth of 132 miles.

A Samoa News staffer, who lives in Tualauta county, said the shaking lasted at least a minute or two, and this was also confirmed by three residents, reached by phone minutes after the shaking stopped.

“It was a bit scary but at least there’s no tsunami,” said one resident, who noted that family members were just waking up at the time when the quake occurred.

In Apia, the Samoa Meteorology Service issued a tsunami “advisory” which was cancelled 30-minutes later.