Mw 6.6 Vanuatu

On 15 January 2019 a strong earthquake occurred at Vanuatu at a depth of 60 km. The seismic event occurred at 18:06:37 UTC and had an estimated moment magnitude (Mw) 6.6.

Critical planetary geometry occurred on 13 January when Earth aligned with Mercury and Saturn. This geometry was then followed by a lunar peak (index 12), partially due to the Moon's alignment with Uranus, but its alignment with Mars on the 12th was also of significance. Note the two alignments with Venus on the 16th, which resulted in a clustering of strong earthquakes from 17 to 20 January, peaking magnitude 6.7.

Sun-Mercury-Jupiter       2019-01-08, 15:11:13  247°05'08"
Earth-Mercury-Saturn      2019-01-13, 13:25:57  282°36'10"
Venus-Mars-Uranus         2019-01-16,  3:03:52   29°44'36"
Venus-Sun-Neptune         2019-01-16, 17:43:26  345°36'28"

Earth-Moon-Neptune        2019-01-11,  0:13:46  344°03'11"
Earth-Moon-Mars           2019-01-12, 23:34:47    7°45'34"
Earth-Moon-Uranus         2019-01-14, 15:19:02   28°21'54"
					

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