Mw 6.0 Vanuatu

On 4 April 2022 a strong earthquake occurred at Vanuatu at a depth of 10 km. The seismic event occurred at 16:06:56 UTC and had an estimated moment magnitude (Mw) 6.0.

Seismic activity could have been stronger following the Venus-Mercury-Uranus conjunction on the 1st and the Earth-Mars-Saturn conjunction early on the 5th, which was exact hours after the earthquake. Statistically a higher 6 magnitude earthquake would have been likely. However, from the 4th to the 17th, only three stronger earthquakes (Mw 6+) occurred, all of them at Vanuatu.

Venus-Mercury-Uranus      2022-04-01, 16:40:29   44°44'36"
Mercury-Sun-Earth         2022-04-02, 22:57:00  192°52'31"
Earth-Mars-Saturn         2022-04-05,  1:45:59  322°06'09"

Earth-Moon-Sun            2022-04-01,  5:44:24   11°10'50"
Earth-Moon-Uranus         2022-04-03, 17:06:48   42°43'41"
					

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