A 7.5 magnitude quake has struck close to New Caledonia in the Pacific, with a tsunami alert issued for coasts within 1,000km (620 miles).

The quake struck at a depth of about 10km at 04:18 GMT, the US Geological Survey reports.

The epicentre was recorded as 168km east-south-east of Tadine, a town on one of New Caledonia’s Loyalty Islands.

New Caledonia is part of the Pacific’s “Ring of Fire”, where many earthquakes occur.

It is a special collectivity of France with a population of about 270,000.

New Zealand’s ministry of civil defence and emergency management tweeted that there was no tsunami threat to the nation’s coasts.

The USGS also recorded a series of aftershocks, two of them at 5.9 magnitude.

The Ring of Fire refers to a string of volcanoes, earthquake sites and tectonic plates around the Pacific. It spreads across 40,000km (25,000 miles) from the southern tip of South America all the way to New Zealand.

On Saturday, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Alaska, causing people to run from buildings and briefly prompting a tsunami alert for coastal areas.

In October, a tsunami struck Palu in Indonesia following a 7.5 magnitude quake, killing more than 1,000 people.

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