There is confirmation today that there was an earthquake felt in the Yasawas just a few days before the high magnitude quake in Tonga in March this year while another earthquake was recorded in the Yasawas just days before the 8.3 magnitude earthquake near American Samoa yesterday morning.
The information has been revealed after Fijivillage received calls from some workers in the Yasawas who are concerned and asked whether the quakes they felt are linked to the major earthquakes in Tonga and American Samoa.
Senior seismologist Lasarusa Vuetibau has now confirmed to us that there was a quake in the Yasawa area last Friday.
We have now ascertained through Vuetibau that the quake in the Yasawa group at about 11:30pm last Friday may be linked to the major earthquake in American Samoa.
Vuetibau also confirmed that there was a quake in the Yasawa group in March this year, just days before the major quake in Tonga which resulted in a tsunami warning for Fiji and other Pacific island countries.
We asked Vuetibau why the people of Fiji were not informed about the earthquakes in the Yasawas, he said they did not see it as life threatening.
We also spoke to a scientist at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre, Stuart Weinstein.
He told Fijivillage from Hawaii that the earthquakes in the Yasawas may have been foreshocks and there could be a link to the larger quakes in Tonga and American Samoa.
Meanwhile, Samoa's disaster management office said more than 32,000 people have been affected in some way by the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that struck in the Pacific Ocean yesterday.
The office puts the confirmed deaths at 83, though it expects that will rise.
The main hospital in Apia said among the bodies it received were those of a two-month old baby and a 102 year old woman.
In neighbouring American Samoa, 24 people have perished and 7 people died in Tonga.
Dozens of aftershocks are rocking islands in the South Pacific after yesterday's undersea quake churned up tsunamis that has left an estimated 1people dead in Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga.
Villagers are wiped out and tourist resorts flattened.
In the village of Siumu, the Coconut Resort is absolutely annihilated. A boat sits on top of what was left of a restaurant, people are just walking through the rubbish, there is nothing left.
The small huts people holiday in are trashed, bamboo sheds smashed, air conditioners ripped out of the wall.
