8.1 Quake Hits Remote Islands
Associated Press
WELLINGTON, New Zealand —
An earthquake measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale--the strongest in a year and powerful enough to cause tremendous damage--struck a remote Pacific archipelago today, but New Zealand scientists on Raoul, the only inhabited island in the Kermadec Islands, said no one was hurt.
A wide area of the South Pacific was put on alert in case the quake set off a tsunami, or giant underwater wave, but the warning was canceled after reports from Pago Pago, Western Samoa, that the water level there rose only four inches.
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