Kent police say there have been reports of an earth tremor in the Folkestone area of Kent.

Kent Fire and Rescue Service said it has dispatched fire engines in the Folkestone and Dover area.

A spokesman said they had received "lots and lots" of calls from residents from Folkestone.

They also said people reported "their chimneys have fallen down, large cracks in people's houses." Eurostar say its services have not been affected.

The BBC has also received a number of calls regarding tremors in the Deal and Folkestone areas..

There have also been reports that the electricity supply is out and also that telephones are not working.

Sharon Hayles, from Stanford near the Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone, said her house slid from side to side for about 10 to 15 seconds.

Another Folkestone man told BBC Five Live Breakfast that his whole house "shook quite violently".

Paul Smye-Rumsby, who lives in Dover, said: "It was about 08.15 when suddenly the bed shook violently.

"I thought my wife had got cramp or something but then I saw the curtains were moving and the whole house was shaking. It lasted about 1.5 seconds.

"All the power is off and we have got the portable radio on. People are standing outside talking to each other about it."

A powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake has struck off the Solomon Islands on Monday morning, prompting a tsunami warning for other South Pacific states and a lower-level alarm for Hawaii.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake struck about 6 miles beneath the sea floor about 217 miles northwest of the Solomons capital of Honiara at 7:39 a.m.

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said an earthquake of that strength could cause a destructive tsunami and issued a warning for the Solomon Islands and neighboring Papua New Guinea.

It ordered a lower-level "tsunami watch" for other places, including most South Pacific countries. The center said it was monitoring the situation and that Hawaii's status could be elevated to warning or watch.

HONIARA (AFP) - A tsunami swept ashore causing damage to towns and villages in the Solomon Islands Monday following a powerful earthquake but there were no early reports of casualties, police said.

A tsunami has swept ashore in the Solomon Islands following a strong undersea earthquake in the South Pacific Ocean, police said.

A police spokesman told the AFP news agency there were reports of damage, but not yet of casualties.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center also issued warnings for Indonesia, Australia and Papua New Guinea, as well as some smaller Pacific islands.

The quake measured 7.6 and hit at 0740 local time on Monday (2040 GMT Sunday).

It struck 345km (215 miles) north-west of the Solomon Islands' capital Honiara, north-east of Australia, the US Geological Survey said, at a depth of 10km (six miles) below the surface.

Solomons police spokesman Mick Spinks said there have been sketchy reports of damage caused by a tsunami in areas near the quake, in the New Georgia Islands region in the west of the Solomons.

"There have been no reports of casualties yet but you have to bear in mind the communications with many areas is poor," he told the AFP agency...

TOKYO  —  Japan issued a tsunami warning for the country's Sea of Japan coast after a strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 struck early Sunday. No major damage or injuries were immediately reported.

The quake occurred shortly before 10 a.m. off the north coast of Ishikawa state, Japan's Meteorological Agency said.

There were no immediate reports of major damage or injuries, national broadcaster NHK said.

Authorities issued a tsunami warning for nearby coastal areas. Seismically triggered waves of up to 25 inches may be expected, the Meteorological Agency said.

Television footage from the quake zone showed buildings shaking violently.

Japan sits atop four tectonic plates and is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries.

EARTHQUAKES IN THE NORTHEAST OHIO SEISMIC ZONE

The Northeast Ohio seismic zone has had moderately frequent earthquakes at least since the first one was reported in 1823. The largest earthquake (magnitude 4.8) caused damage in 1986 in northeasternmost Ohio, and the most recent damaging shock (magnitude 4.5) occurred in 1998 at the seismic zone's eastern edge in northwestern Pennsylvania. Earthquakes too small to cause damage are felt two or three times per decade.

Earthquakes in the central and eastern U.S., although less frequent than in the western U.S., are typically felt over a much broader region. East of the Rockies, an earthquake can be felt over an area as much as ten times larger than a similar magnitude earthquake on the west coast. A magnitude 4.0 eastern U.S. earthquake typically can be felt at many places as far as 100 km (60 mi) from where it occurred, and it infrequently causes damage near its source. A magnitude 5.5 eastern U.S. earthquake usually can be felt as far as 500 km (300 mi) from where it occurred, and sometimes causes damage as far away as 40 km (25 mi).

Earthquakes everywhere occur on faults within bedrock, usually miles deep. Most of the seismic zone's bedrock was formed as several generations of mountains rose and were eroded down again over the last billion or more years.

At well-studied plate boundaries like the San Andreas fault system in California, often scientists can determine the name of the specific fault that is responsible for an earthquake. In contrast, east of the Rocky Mountains this is rarely the case. The Northeast Ohio seismic zone is far from the nearest plate boundaries, which are in the center of the Atlantic Ocean and in the Caribbean Sea. The seismic zone is laced with known faults but numerous smaller or deeply buried faults remain undetected. Even the known faults are poorly located at earthquake depths. Accordingly, few, if any, earthquakes in the seismic zone can be linked to named faults. It is difficult to determine if a known fault is still active and could slip and cause an earthquake. As in most other areas east of the Rockies, the best guide to earthquake hazards in the Northeast Ohio seismic zone is the earthquakes themselves.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck under the sea of northeastern Indonesia Sunday, damaging a church and injuring three people, the U.S. Geological Survey and witnesses said.

It was large enough to cause a tsunami, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said in a statement, but there were no immediate reports of high waves in regional coastal areas.

The Indonesian seismological institute, which put the tremor at 6.7 magnitude, issued a tsunami alert via local television and radio after the earthquake hit around 10 kilometers (6 miles) under the Molucca Sea, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

In the regional capital of Sulawesi, Manado, a witness told The Associated Press that residents ran in panic and that three people had been hurt after a church was damaged.

The epicenter was 130 kilometers (around 80 miles) from the city of Ternate, the capital of North Maluku province, where residents ran to higher ground in panic.

An official with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii told AP that a basin-wide tsunami — one that travels a great distance or across an ocean — is not expected, though a tsunami near the earthquake's site is "always possible."...