Friday 26 / July / 2024
Port Moresby: An earthquake measuring 6.9 magnitude on the Richter scale on Sunday hit northern Papua New Guinea, according to US Institute of Geophysics.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said that there is no threat of a tsunami due to the earthquake which occurred at a depth of approximately 35 km.
The earthquake occurred about 88 km southwest of Wewak, a town of 25,000 people and the capital of East Sepik Province in Papua New Guinea, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or material damage, and the intensity of the earthquake was reduced after it was initially declared a magnitude of 7.
Although earthquakes rarely cause widespread damage in the country, which is dominated by forested highlands and sparsely populated, they sometimes cause devastating landslides.
At least seven people were killed in April last year (2023), when a 7-magnitude earthquake struck a forested area inside the country.
Papua New Guinea is located in the so-called Ring of Fire, a region that extends along the coast of the Pacific Ocean and is characterized by high seismic and volcanic activity. This region includes 90 percent of the active volcanoes in the world. A devastating earthquake rocked the country in February 2018, leaving at least 100 people killed, and dozens of villages buried.
