6.3 in Tonga

What is this in the Pacific in the past couple of days! Have no further info- happened about 45 minutes ago. Off shore, no apparent tsunamia associated with it hopefully no damage on shore.

Please - we have 6.3 earthquakes all the time here and they are nothing to worry about in this region of the world. No damage at all and hardly worth mentioning. Of course people are more aware of this right now though.

FYI, the Richter magnitude scale is 10-based logarithmic, meaning one number higher equals 10 times stronger. So the 8.0 quake on Tuesday was about 100 (10x10) times stronger than the 6.x quake now. On the first glance 6.3 and 8.0 does not seem to be that much difference, but in fact it really is.

Unfortunately but understandably people are very nervous now and that tiny short tremble some hours ago already made people leave their houses and such. I am sure that nothing happened in Tonga as well. These are just aftershocks and we had many of them since the main quake two days ago.

It is interesting that a 6.3 earthquake, as hit Indonesia, can cause so much damage in an overpopualted city, but hardly be felt on a Pacific island, where all they do is rock you gently. If I am asleep, these days, I don't even wake up when a quake that size hits in Solomon Islands. but then the tallest building in Honiara is only 6 stories.
However, we feel them over 7, and they can cause damage. Over 8 - there is devastation.

Exactly - here in Samoa too I would hardly notice it when it is not 7 at least. We had a quake with 7.2 some years ago with the epicenter right below Apia - many miles deep down of course though. We were in the middle of a prize-giving in a big hall. Everything was just shaking but not even a window was broken. No panic - the ceremony was put on hold and simply continued after a minute or two when everything was over.

I am not sure what really makes the difference. It certainly is the depth that the quake actually occurs. And here we have volcanic material, lava stones and such, not granite and those other really solid rocks. And layers of sand in between and even water. I guess that all works shock absorbing. But I'm not an expert in this.

Also, many of the traditional buildings are made from plant materials, which have more give than concrete and steel.
One of my oddest experiences was a quake while attending a feast on an artificial island in Malaita. The whole place rocked gently, but didn't disturb anyone.
However, once you have been through a tsunami, as the Samoans did this week, and the people of the Western Solomons did a couple of years ago, any tremor will bring back flashbacks. Hence, the next quake, though it didn't cause physical damage, may have caused great distress to those already traumatised.

"Also, many of the traditional buildings are made from plant materials, which have more give than concrete and steel."

Yes it's the same in Central America where traditional houses were really just upside down baskets that swayed and shivered with tremors but never collapsed-unless they were really ancient.

I agree. Nevertheless the non-traditional buildings do not get damaged as well, so the shocks cannot be as strong as the would be somewhere else. We just had that earthquake here that triggered the Tsunami. The quake itself was just a bit more than 100 miles away, only 10 km deep (which is not much for a quake) and it was estimated at 8.3 on the Richter scale. The only damage reported here by the quake itself were some goods having fallen off store shelves ... Nothing to speak of. The Tsunami was the problem not the quake as such.