Tsunami warning

He said that is the reason the tsunami warning was late on 15 January following the volcanic eruption in Tonga.

Usamate reassured that the Seismology Unit in the country monitors the likelihood of tsunamis every 24 hours.

He added that this month alone 70 earthquake activity was picked up by the unit, with 13 of those occurring locally.

“So because the whole system was oriented towards earthquakes when they had this volcanic activity that might lead to tsunami, they did not have the parameters to measure that this volcano leads to tsunami.”

A magnitude 8 earthquake struck around 8.28am NZ time at a depth of 10 km, triggering an alert for much of the south Pacific region.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said hazardous tsunami waves were possible within the next three hours along the coastlines.

Waves reaching one to three metres above the tide level are possible along some coasts of French Polynesia.

The 6.9 magnitude quake (which was initally measured by the US Geological Survey as magnitude 7-point-3) struck near the village of Wau, just after one o'clock this afternoon, local time, at a depth of 85 kilometres.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre says hazardous waves are possible within 300 kilometres of the epicentre, along the coast of PNG.

The epicentre is about two-hundred kilometres north of PNG's capital Port Moresby.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued a tsunami warning for coastlines within 300 kilometres of the epicentre, saying wave heights would vary depending on coastlines and that the initial wave may not be the largest.

It said small tsunamis had been detected and forecast waves up to one metre above the high tide level to hit parts of New Caledonia and smaller waves for Vanuatu.

"We are a little bit scared," said Wayan Rigault, communications manager at Hotel Nengone Village on the island of Mare, which is the closest landmass to the epicentre.