Wellington, New Zealand: A powerful earthquake hit the coastal region in Papua New Guinea late Tuesday. Fortunately, no injury or damage was caused to citizens of townships states reports.
An earthquake rattled the coastal region of Papua New Guinea with a powerful magnitude of 7.5 richter scale.
The quake’s impact was about 45 kilometers (28 miles) northeast in the ocean up till Kokopo, a town with a population of about 26,000, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was followed by several large aftershocks.
There was some damage in Kokopo as in items on the shelves shook and the power had been cut, said Chris McKee, the acting director of geohazards management. He also said there had been a small tsunami although in the dark hours and information about it remained sketchy.
McKee said the earthquake was a strike-slip event along a fault line, a type of quake that doesn’t usually trigger major tsunamis.
The quake struck at a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles), according to the USGS. Shallow earthquakes tend to cause more damage on the Earth’s surface, but the USGS estimated that damage and injuries would be low because of the area’s sparse population.
Garfield Tarabu, a spokesman at the National Disaster Centre, said a disaster coordinator was on the ground assessing the situation in and around Kokopo but they hadn’t yet gotten an update on the extent of the damage.
The U.S. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center had said tsunami waves of up to 1 meter (3.3 feet) were possible along coastal areas up to 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the epicenter, including Papua New Guinea and the nearby Solomon Islands.
(With inputs from AP)
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