The earthquake was registered at 3:11 a.m. UTC (3:11 GMT). The epicenter of the earthquake was 32 kilometers (20 miles) southwest of the Vanuatuan city of Luganville, at a depth of 10 kilometers.
There is no immediate information about possible casualties or destruction.
Sitting on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" at the meeting of two tectonic plates, Vanuatu frequently faces earthquakes that are sometimes accompanied by tsunami. In August alone, the island nation faced three earthquakes of a magnitude 5.0 and higher.