On 6 September 2018 a major earthquake occurred in Fiji at a depth of 627 km. The seismic event occurred at 15:49:15 UTC and had an estimated moment magnitude (Mw) 7.8. It was the second large and deep earthquake in the region in just over two weeks.
In the first week of September 2018 Venus, Mars and Neptune were closely aligned (within 2°). At the same time Earth was lining up heliocentrically with Neptune. Critical planetary geometry also occurred on the 3rd coinciding with a lunar peak that reached index 13. Another critical alignment occurred on the 5th when Mercury aligned also heliocentrically with Saturn. Finally, a few hours before the earthquake the Moon lined up with Mars. A strong earthquake already occurred a day earlier as a result of this geometry.
Mercury-Sun-Saturn 2018-09-05, 15:19:43 277°42'14" Sun-Earth-Neptune 2018-09-07, 18:12:18 344°49'04" Venus: Mercury-Earth 2018-09-03, 6:15:09 90°00'00" Moon-Earth-Saturn 2018-09-04, 15:55:29 272°17'16" Moon-Earth-Mars 2018-09-06, 12:22:39 299°00'53" Venus-Mars-Neptune 2018-09-05, 0:00:00 1°19'07"