Several powerful earthquakes hit near the coast of New Zealand on Thursday night and Friday morning, prompting tsunami warnings for New Zealand and tsunami watches for Hawaii. The most powerful was an 8.1 quake that hit some 620 miles northeast of New Zealand on Friday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Two earlier quakes registered magnitude 7.4 and magnitude 7.3.Small tsunami waves were seen later Friday, but there were no reports of serious damage or casualties.Jennifer Eccles, an earthquake expert at the University of Auckland, said the 8.1 temblor was at the top end of the scale for those involving only the …
