And earthquake A magnitude 7.6 earthquake shook eastern Papua New Guinea on Sunday, with local residents reporting damage to buildings near the town of Madang.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), which reported the earthquake, initially issued a tsunami alertbut later said the threat “has passed.”
However, he indicated that there could beminor fluctuations in sea level in some coastal areas”.
The earthquake had its epicenter 67 km from the town of Kainantu with a depth of 61kmthe USGS noted.
Blackouts and damage to buildings were reported in parts of Papua New Guinea. The telluric movement was felt from towns near the epicenter to the capital Port Moresby, a distance of 480 km.
Photos and videos of the damage to a university in the mountainous town of Rokaeast, showed cracks in the walls and window awnings that fell during the earthquake.
settlers of Lae y Madangthe towns closest to the epicenter, told AFP they felt it more strongly than previous earthquakes.
“Very strong, everything was like sitting in the sea, floating,” said Hivi Apokore, a worker at the Jais Aben Resort near Madang.
Meanwhile, in Indonesian waters, two strong earthquakes were recorded on Sunday that shook the Mentawai Islands, near the west coast of the island of Sumatra, the USGS reported.
One of the earthquakes had a magnitude of 6.0 and the other 5.7, both with an epicenter on the seabed, and initially no personal or material damage was reported.
Papua New Guinea is located in the Pacific “Ring of Fire”which makes it prone to tremors.
in the neighbor Indonesiaand earthquake magnitude 9.1 caused a tsunami in 2004 that left 220,000 dead in the region, including about 170,000 in Indonesia.