Powerful earthquake rattles New Zealand

Wellington, (New Zealand): A powerful magnitude 7.4 earthquake hit deep under the South Pacific late Tuesday near a chain of islands north of New Zealand, the US Geological Survey said.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a bulletin saying the quake had not generated a destructive Pacific-wide tsunami but warned it could spawn a small tsunami within 100 kilometers of its epicenter.

The USGS said the quake hit at 1039 GMT 148 kilometers below the seabed about 290 kilometers south-southwest of Raoul Island in the Kermadec island chain, which is 1,140 kilometers northeast of New Zealand's largest city, Auckland.

The powerful quake, which New Zealand seismologists said registered at magnitude 7.5, rocked a wide area of the country, but was unlikely to have caused damage, seismologist Ken Gledhill told The Associated Press.

''It has been felt very widely but is unlikely to have caused any damage in New Zealand,'' he said, adding that within half an hour more than 500 people had reported the quake's impact.

''It was too deep to have ruptured the sea floor,'' Gledhill said, adding a tsunami was unlikely ''if that depth is correct.''

Raoul Island was the center of a series of earthquakes during a volcanic eruption in March that killed a New Zealand conservation worker and forced the evacuation of the island.

Several conservation workers returned to the island last month. There was no immediate word on whether they were affected by the quake.

The quake was felt throughout North Island and as far south as Christchurch on South Island.

Wellington police inspector Peter Stokes said there were no immediate reports of injury or damage.

''We sure did feel it. Our building swayed a bit,'' he said.

A policeman in the east coast North Island town of Whakatane said he was sitting on a chair talking to the police communications center in the northern city of Auckland when it struck.

''Things started moving and I thought this is a goodie,'' said Sgt. Andrew O'Reilly.

The quake came a day before countries around the Pacific rim were to test a tsunami warning system spanning the world's largest ocean.

New Zealand is among more than two dozen countries taking part in the drill to test the Pacific warning system that has been in place since 1965.

During the exercise early Wednesday, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii will send out warnings about mock earthquakes off the Chilean coast and Luzon island in the northern Philippines that are powerful enough to set off a tsunami across the vast ocean.

Governments will test if and how fast they receive the warnings and how rapidly they are relayed down domestic emergency alert systems.