Papua New Guinea earthquake: Tsunami threat passes after magnitude-7.9 tremor near Bougainville
Updated
A magnitude-7.9 earthquake has struck off the coast of Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea, causing damage and blackouts but no tsunami.
The quake struck at 3:30pm (AEDT) at a depth of 136 kilometres, the United States Geological Survey said. It was initially reported to be of magnitude 8.0.
No casualties were reported, but there was damage in parts of central Bougainville and the major town of Arawa, Aloysius Laukai, manager of New Dawn FM Bougainville radio station, said in an email.
The provincial capital of Buka was blacked out and residents of the southern town of Buin were moved to higher ground as a precaution against a potential tsunami, Mr Laukai said, but all tsunami warnings were later lifted.
An initial tsunami alert for several Pacific islands was wound back to cover just PNG and the neighbouring Solomon Islands, and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre later said the tsunami threat had passed safely for those countries.
The Bureau of Meteorology also confirmed that there was no tsunami threat to Australia.
The greatest tsunami threat had been to Bougainville and that threat had passed without any report of a tsunami, said Chris McKee, assistant director at PNG's Geophysical Observatory Office in Port Moresby.
"I suspect that because of the great depth of the earthquake, there was probably no significant tsunami," Mr McKee said.
Solomon Islands government official George Herming said he was not aware of any major tremors being felt in his country or any tsunami.
Earthquakes are common in PNG, which sits on the Pacific's 'Ring of Fire', a hotspot for seismic activity due to friction between tectonic plates.
Bougainville Island is one of the islands that make up the Autonomous Region of Bougainville within PNG which is home to around 300,000 people.
Reuters/AP
Topics: earthquake, disasters-and-accidents, papua-new-guinea, pacific
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