Key points
- PNG’s New Britain is home to over 500,000 people
- It comes just days after a horror 7.7 magnitude earthquake ripped through Myanmar
- Earthquakes are common in Papua New Guinea
ISLAMABAD: A strong 6.9-magnitude earthquake struck Saturday morning off the coast of Papua New Guinea’s New Britain Island, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.
It comes just days after a horror 7.7 magnitude earthquake ripped through Myanmar, according to The Sun.
The epicentre was offshore, at a depth of just six miles, amplifying tsunami fears. New Britain, home to over 500,000 people, lies within the volatile Pacific “Ring of Fire”, a hotspot for seismic activity where tectonic plates constantly shift, according to The Sun.
According to AFP, the shallow quake, at a depth of 10 kilometres (six miles), triggered a tsunami warning which was later downgraded by the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre.
“Based on all available data the tsunami threat from this earthquake has now passed,” the centre said, adding that “no tsunami was observed” at the nearest monitoring site.
The earthquake struck at 6:04 am local time (2004 GMT) and was centred about 194 kilometres (120 miles) southeast of the nearest major town Kimbe.
Marolyn Simbiken, a receptionist at Kimbe’s Liamo Reef Resort, said so far she had not seen any damage.
“We did feel the earthquake here,” she told AFP.
No big damage
“But there’s not big damage. Nothing was damaged here and there was no evacuation.”
Walindi Plantation Resort worker Barbara Aibilo she felt a “slight shake”.
Several smaller quakes, with preliminary magnitudes ranging from 4.9 to 5.3, struck afterwards near the same patch of sea, according to the USGS.
Earthquakes are common in Papua New Guinea, which sits on top of the seismic “Ring of Fire” — an arc of intense tectonic activity that stretches through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.
Although they seldom cause widespread damage in sparsely populated areas, they can trigger destructive landslides, according to AFP.
