Magnitude 7.7 Earthquake – 68 km NNW of Ende, Indonesia(earthquake.usgs.gov)
174 pointsby Bender6 hours ago7 comments
  • insaider5 hours ago
    Is this big enough to produce a Tsunami? Apparently maybe only a small localised one, but I'm supposed to be getting the ferry from Lombok to Bali shortly and two of those have already burnt down the last 2 weeks!
    • decimalenough5 hours ago
      A ferry in the open ocean is one of the safer places to be during a tsunami. Remember, it's not a surf-style wave, but a gradual increase in water level.
      • throwaway8943452 hours ago
        boarding the ferry may not be the most pleasant, however.
      • 4 hours ago
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    • Polizeiposaune3 hours ago
      Indonesia's tsunami bulletins appear to be here:

      https://rtsp.bmkg.go.id/publicbull.php

      They've declared the event over - some waves were generated but nothing particularly large. Bulletin 3 for the recent quake includes wave height observations - maximum reported was 94cm; most were under 50cm.

    • wiml5 hours ago
      I've seen "possible tsunami" pre-warnings, and a sea level gauge at/near Lembar showing sea level oscillations - so I would recommend keeping a close watch on some information source that's better than HN comment threads, yes.
      • lostlogin3 hours ago
        Correct, but also, I’d bet there is a lurking tsunami expert here somewhere. Nothing is ever too niche for HN.
    • Grimburger5 hours ago
      Tsunamis are only an issue close to shore. In the ocean it's barely a mild wave.

      In a boat going further out is the safest thing you can do if there's a tsunami warning.

    • bdickason4 hours ago
      I would upgrade the ferry and make sure to get a high quality one given all the swell in the ocean already (most of bali had 6ft+ waves yesterday) and this incident. Not worth the risk.
    • seanmcdirmid2 hours ago
      Lombok will have lots of higher ground at least. You really just have to be careful on and near the beach.
    • yxhuvud3 hours ago
      Easily big enough, but how deep it was generated and how the movements happened do impact the risk a lot.
    • reilly30005 hours ago
      Safe travels, friend.
    • pestatije4 hours ago
      the tsunami risk is negligible compared to the fire risk
      • insaideran hour ago
        Agreed, currently aboard and on high alert, pray for me HN
        • bdickason15 minutes ago
          Let us know you made it ok!
    • rootsudo4 hours ago
      Interesting times for the ferry indeed
  • CookieCrisp5 hours ago
    I know large earthquakes are effectively random (ignoring aftershocks) but this feels like a lot this year, yeah?
    • HaloZero3 hours ago
      Yeah, I looked this up and USGS literally has a page about this.

      https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/why-are-we-having-so-many-or-so-fe...

      According to long-term records (since about 1900), we expect about 16 major earthquakes in any given year. That includes 15 earthquakes in the magnitude 7 range and one earthquake magnitude 8.0 or greater. In the past 40-50 years, our records show that we have exceeded the long-term average number of major earthquakes about a dozen times.

      You can see a map of ALL the 7+ here:

      https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=-89.0318...

      The search filtering is a bit hard to find in the UI but the parameters in the URL can be modified. (We had 16+ 7.0 last year as a comparison)

      • astrobe_an hour ago
        I've always wondered if the melting of glaciers would move masses from one place to another and induce some tectonic moves. But the mass is most likely not significant enough; water/ice has a relatively low density after all.
        • dev1ycan30 minutes ago
          It's more likely related to planetary positions and or solar cycle/activity, "recent studies suggest a notable statistical correlation between specific solar magnetic milestones and the shifting phases of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation"

          Like in theory it doesn't make sense that el niño causes earthquakes, yet there seems to be more prominent ones during el niño however if both are related to sun cycle/activity it would make more sense (seeing how the moon affects earth as well)

    • teacpde5 hours ago
      Yea, feel like a lot of big ones this year, but looking it up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_2026 it is actually not necessarily worse than previous years.
      • marcosdumay2 hours ago
        Given we are barely beyond half of the year, that puts us close to the outlier that was 2023 in the 7+ range.

        2023 also had a strong el-niño event.

    • keeda2 hours ago
      Sure feels like it in my corner of the Bay Area, since we had a prolonged earthquake swarm earlier this year, even hitting a record number of earthquakes per day or something like that.
    • ortusdux5 hours ago
      76 quakes ranking 7.0+ so far this decade, including 10 this year.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_2021%E2%80...

    • beloch3 hours ago
      Earthquakes can occur in swarms[1] (distinct from aftershocks), with many of a similar size (i.e. Not a big quake followed by smaller ones) occurring in a small area over "relatively short" periods of time (i.e. days, weeks, or years).

      The USGS map shows the 7.7 quake being followed by about 19 other smaller quakes near or in Indonesia within just a few hours. These are probably aftershocks.

      -------

      [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_swarm

    • jeffrwells4 hours ago
      HN highlighting a lot this year, is all
    • kermatt5 hours ago
      I was wondering the same: https://www.morageology.com/earthquake_year.php
      • LeBit5 hours ago
        > Note: While it may look like there have been an increase in total number of earthquakes since about 2020, this is actually due to the increasing number of seismic stations installed in the park since 2020 that are able to detect smaller (<= 0.5 magnitude) earthquakes. If you look at the number of earthquakes >= 1.0, the rate has remained about the same.
        • jwilber3 hours ago
          Somehow I don’t think people are confusing raw seismic station earthquake counts with the three back-to-back high profile/magnitude earthquakes that recently occurred in Venezuela, Colombia, and Indonesia.

          I understand the point, maybe those recent earthquakes aren’t ood, but still.

      • goda905 hours ago
        Why does this page say there have been 0 >2.5mag earthquakes this year?
        • teraflop4 hours ago
          Because this particular sensor network is only monitoring earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest of the USA, not worldwide.
        • 4 hours ago
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    • jtfrench3 hours ago
      It does feel like a lot
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  • burnt-resistor5 hours ago
    So Google Earth says the ocean depth at the epicenter is 6,286 ft / 1,916 m, but I couldn't find a corresponding tsunami alert or evaluation of risk.
    • mikeyouse5 hours ago
      Looks like it was a strike-slip fault, so a much lower tsunami risk compared to a subduction / dip-slip fault.
  • numb_code4 hours ago
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  • navigate83105 hours ago
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