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Papua New Guinea

March 11, 2013 by · Comments Off on Papua New Guinea 

Papua New Guinea, Two earthquakes have rocked Papua New Guinea this morning.

A magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck off the north coast city of Lae at 8.51am on Monday, the US Geological Survey says.

The quake, about 139 kilometres east of Lae, was initially recorded at a depth of about 20km, although that figure was later revised to 84km.

It followed an earlier 5.7 quake which hit 135km southwest of Kokopo, the capital of the East New Britain province, at 2.49am local time (5.49am NZT), according to the USGS.

The quake, which struck at a depth of 60km, was originally reported to have been a 5.5 magnitude.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said there was no Pacific-wide tsunami threat.

Papua New Guinea Earthquake

December 15, 2011 by · Comments Off on Papua New Guinea Earthquake 

Papua New Guinea Earthquake, An earthquake measuring 7.1 magnitude hit Papua New Guinea on Wednesday afternoon, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.

The tremor struck at a depth of 75 miles, about 137 miles north-northwest of the capital Port Moresby at 3:05 p.m. local time.

Witnesses in Port Moresby told AFP that people came running out of buildings, power lines swayed and parked cars rocked.

“It was pretty strong. Everybody felt it. I was sitting in my car when it hit and it was rocking, rocking, rocking,” an AFP photographer said.

According to Geoscience Australia, the tremor was not expected to create a tsunami.

“It’s not tsunamigenic,” seismologist Clive Collins said. “That’s the assessment on the basis that it’s about 2 miles inshore and also it’s about 74 miles deep and that’s too deep really to cause any tsunami problems.”

But Collins said the quake could cause other problems for the nearest largest town, Wau, about 12 miles from the epicenter, and Lae, 55 miles away.

“It’s in a mountainous area so there may be issues of landslides and things like that. That’s what’s the main problem in that particular part of Papua New Guinea,” Collins said.

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