A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck Maunaloa on the Big Island on Friday, knocking items off shelves and cutting power in a nearby town but not immediately prompting reports of serious damage.
No tsunami was expected, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.
The earthquake, which the U.S. Geological Survey initially reported as magnitude 6.3 and then lowered to 5.7, was centered on Maunaloa's southern flank at a depth of 23 miles, 1.3 miles southwest of Pāhala.
"It shook us bad to where it wobbled some knees a little bit," said Derek Nelson, the manager of the Kona Canoe Club restaurant in the oceanside community of Kona, on the island’s western side. “It shook all the windows in the village.”
There was a power outage affecting about 300 customers in Nāʻālehu that appeared to be related to the earthquake, said Darren Pai, spokesperson for Hawaiian Electric Company.
Some shaking could be felt about 200 miles away in Honolulu on Oʻahu. The earthquake came shortly after 10 a.m. and was followed by several smaller aftershocks.
Big Island Mayor Mitch Roth was in Honolulu at a cardiologist appointment and initially thought he was experiencing side effects from a procedure: “All of a sudden I felt like I was getting dizzy.”
Roth said he immediately got on the phone with his emergency management officials when he realized it was an earthquake, and that he was heading to the Honolulu airport to try to get an earlier flight back.
Grace Tabios, the owner of Will and Grace Filipino Variety Store in Nāʻālehu, said the shaking knocked down her husband, who was working at their coffee farm in Pahala.
At the store, jars of mayonnaise and medicine from the Philippines fell off the shelves.
Julia Neal, the owner of Pahala Plantation Cottages, said a mirror and brass lamp fell during some forceful shaking.
“We have a lot of the old wooden plantation homes and so they were rattling pretty loudly,” she said.
Maunaloa last erupted in late 2022. It’s one of five volcanoes that make up the Big Island.
Earthquakes can occur in Hawaiʻi for a variety of reasons, including magma moving under the surface. In Friday’s case, scientists believe the likely cause was the weight of the Hawaiian Islands bending and stressing the Earth's crust and upper mantle.
That's what caused a magnitude 6.9 earthquake that struck off Kīholo Bay on the Big Island’s northwest coast in 2006. That temblor damaged roads and buildings and knocked out power as far away as Honolulu.
The observatory said the earthquake didn’t affect Maunaloa or Kīlauea.
Jessica Ferracane, a spokesperson at Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, said there was no apparent damage to its roads or visitor centers. Earthquakes are not uncommon, she said, but this one was “much more intense” than usual.
The Hawaiian Islands have been built by successive volcanic eruptions over millions of years. The vast majority of earthquakes in Hawaiʻi occur on and around the Big Island. About once every 1.5 years, there is an earthquake in the state that is magnitude 5 or greater, according to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
