A powerful earthquake struck off the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu on early Sunday morning, media reports from Vanuatu quoted seismologists as confirming.

The 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit at 9.55 a.m. local time in Vanuatu (2255 GMT Saturday).

The good news was that there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties and no tsunami warnings were issued afterwards neither. However, the USGS estimated that severe shakes may have been felt by some of their people.

It was centered about 122 kilometers (75 miles) south-southeast of Isangel, a city on the Vanuatu island of Tanna.

It struck about 132.4 kilometers (82.3 miles) deep, making it an earthquake of intermediate depth, according to reports from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) on Sunday immediately after the earthquake struck.

There were strong shaking on nearby islands, which could potentially result in light to moderate damage in villagers homes and wherever else.

Another 63,000 people were estimated to having perceived light to moderate shaking as well wherever they were.

However, because the earthquake struck fairly deep, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center nor the local Vanuatu government issued a tsunami warning out to the local people.

"A destructive tsunami was not generated based on earthquake and historical tsunami data," the local media there said Sunday.

Vanuatu is on the so-called "Pacific Ring of Fire", an arc of fault lines circling the Pacific Basin that is prone to frequent and large earthquakes.

Volcanic eruptions also occur frequently in the region and local governments continue to improve their awareness campaigns for the people to know what to do if disaster strikes.

As recent as two weeks ago, on Aug. 21, two powerful earthquakes measuring 7.1 and 7.4 on the Richter scale also struck near Vanuatu, prompting a local tsunami warning and generating small tsunamis which hit the island of Efate. There were no reports of damage or casualties too then.

But as Pacific people living near the Ocean, the region has climate change on the top of the list to discuss at every regional top level meets and people are scared of the implications of earthquakes and tsunamis.

It's also a money issue for these governments that really depend on aid for most development projects including infrastructure which China has contributed to a lot in 2011 alone.

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