Moderate earthquake

Geonet says the quake was centred 5km north of the town at a depth of 36km.

It occurred just before 5pm (local time).

Within 15 minutes more than 6000 people had registered their ratings of the quake on the Geonet website.

The Fiji Times newspaper reports the 5.8 magnitude earthquake occurred at 1.16pm at a depth of 10km.

The offshore earthquake occurred 141km Northwest from Luganville, Vanuatu; 901km Southeast from Honiara, Solomon Is; and 1344km Northwest from Suva.

There are no reports yet of whether people felt the shake.