Mw 6.6 Southeast of Loyalty Islands

On 16 October 2018 a strong earthquake occurred Southeast of Loyalty Islands at a depth of 10 km. The seismic event occurred at 01:03:42 UTC and had an estimated moment magnitude (Mw) 6.6.

The earthquake occurred hours after a Mercury-Venus-Earth alignment,

Sun-Mercury-Jupiter       2018-10-10,  2:50:25  240°00'35"
Mercury-Earth-Uranus      2018-10-10, 17:20:37   30°49'55"
Mercury-Venus-Uranus      2018-10-12,  1:30:24   30°55'14"
Mercury-Venus-Earth       2018-10-15, 20:11:24   38°35'23"

Earth-Moon-Jupiter        2018-10-11, 22:50:39  233°56'20"
Earth-Moon-Saturn         2018-10-15,  2:12:15  273°28'46"
          

SSGI depiction of planetary (PG) and lunar (LG) geometry