The earthquake occurred at a depth of 80 kilometers, 65 kilometers from the country’s second largest city.
(dpa/Reuters)
The Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea was hit by a strong earthquake on Sunday night. The USGS USGS put the magnitude at 7.7. The epicenter was therefore 65 kilometers from Lae, the second largest city in the country on the north coast with around 150,000 inhabitants. The American weather agency NOAA issued a tsunami warning early Sunday morning, but it was soon lifted.
According to a statement from the Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Center (ESMC), the earthquake occurred at a depth of 80 kilometers. Nothing was initially known about damage and victims. Northern Papua New Guinea is more prone to earthquakes.
New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and numerous other islands in the region lie on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, where around 90 percent of all earthquakes worldwide occur. The geologically most active zone in the world stretches in a horseshoe shape for almost 40,000 kilometers around the world’s largest ocean.