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Three Earthquakes Strike
Asia
Strongest quake south of Mindanao
The strongest of the three earthquakes of Saturday was beneath the Celebes Sea south of the island of
Mindanao, Philippines. This M7.1 (7.1 magnitude) quake was a powerful tremblor capable of serious devastation if near the surface.
However, the focal depth was 485 km, or 300 miles, below the surface. At such a depth, the quake's
energy (and potential to trigger a tsunami) would be greatly dissipated before reaching the surface, even if there were land over the
epicenter.
An M6.3 quake happened near the Northern Mariana Islands of the western North Pacific Ocean.
Here again, this was a moderately deep (86-mile focal depth) quake, while powerful and potentially serious, its energy would attenuate
substantially before reaching the surface.
There were actually two moderately strong quakes (M5.5 and M5.4) beneath the southern Andaman
Sea east of Nicobar Islands and north of northern Sumatra. These were relatively shallow, but with substantially less power than the
aforementioned; could they have triggered "minor" tsunamis? I cannot say yea or nay. Their focal depths, by the way, were 18 and
12 miles, respectively.
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