Strong quake sparks tsunami alert; Tonga fails to receive warning

TONGA: A massive magnitude 7.8 earthquake rocked the South Pacific island nation of Tonga on Thursday, triggering international warnings of a potentially lethal tsunami - but those messages failed to reach the tiny nation.

The warning raised jitters from Hawaii to New Zealand, until authorities called it off two hours later because the quake never generated any massive waves. The 4:26 a.m. earthquake, about 150 kilometers (95 miles) south of the Tongan island of Neiafu, did little damage to South Pacific countries beyond breaking windows.

However, the tsunami warnings did not reach Tonga, raising troubling questions about the effectiveness of such alerts, which have come under global scrutiny since an earthquake-driven tsunami in the Indian Ocean nearly 18 months ago left at least 216,000 people dead or missing in a dozen countries.

Mali'u Takai, deputy director of Tonga's National Disaster Office, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that the system that should have passed on an alert from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii had malfunctioned.

"Nobody got a warning through the emergency satellite system in our meteorological office," Takai said. "Judging by the location of the epicenter we would have been caught out without any warning at all because of the systems malfunction." He did not elaborate.

In Fiji, the tsunami alarm system only operated on the main island - not the other 110 inhabited Fijian islands. Police Insp. Penioni Ravoka of the Fijian capital of Suva said "it is difficult" to warn residents of all the inhabited islands.

The warning system failures lend greater urgency to a test of alert systems in 23 countries on both sides of the earthquake-prone Pacific that is scheduled to take place in two weeks. They will practice their emergency responses and decision-making procedures. The exercise is not expected to involve any simulated evacuations.

The quake, which struck about 16 kilometers (10 miles) at a location 2,160 kilometers (1,340 miles) north-northeast of Auckland, New Zealand, initially was assessed as having a significantly higher 8.1 magnitude.

The Hawaii center said its alerts apparently were not received in Tonga because of a power failure there that lasted about two hours.

Nuku Alofa, Thursday, AP