After a 7.6 magnitude Earthquake strikes a rural corner of Papua New Guinea, three people are killed.
Authorities say at least three people were killed after a massive earthquake struck a rural corner of Papua New Guinea early Sunday morning. The magnitude 7.6 shocks across the Pacific country hurt others and destroyed infrastructure.
According to Morobe Provincial Disaster Director Charley Massage, three individuals were killed in a landslide in the gold-mining town of Wau. Other persons had been hurt by fallen structures or debris, and some health centres, residences, rural roads, and highways had been damaged.
Massage stated that determining the entire extent of the casualties and destruction in the region might take some time. However, considering the earthquake’s magnitude, he believes the sparse and scattered population and absence of substantial structures near the epicentre in the country’s mostly underdeveloped highlands may have helped avert a worse calamity.
One local from the nearest village to the epicentre recalled his horror. Renagi Ravu was at his house in Kainantu with two coworkers when the earthquake occurred.
Ravu tried to get out of his chair but couldn’t keep his balance, so he ended up in a group embrace with his coworkers, as plates and drinks tumbled to the ground, he added.
His children, ages 9 and 2, had spilled their beverages and food.
Ravu, a geologist, said he tried to calm everyone down as the shaking lasted more than a minute.
Ravu estimated that 10,000 people reside in and near his village, which is 66 kilometres (41 miles) from the earthquake’s epicentre.
He stated that individuals were agitated.
“It’s common that earthquakes are felt here, but it usually doesn’t last as long and is not as violent as this one,” Ravu said. “It was quite intense.”
Ravu was assessing the damage to his home, which he suspected included a broken sewer line based on the odour.
He claimed that friends in other parts of Kainantu had messaged him with accounts of cracked roads, broken pipes, and fallen debris, but no significant building collapses or injuries.
“They’re starting to clean up their houses and streets,” he explained. Communication appears to have been disrupted, with some mobile towers likely falling.
In 2018, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake in the country’s central area killed at least 125 people. The quake struck rural and underdeveloped areas, and assessments of the damage and casualties were sluggish to emerge.
According to Felix Taranu, a seismologist at the Geophysical Observatory in the capital Port Moresby, it is too early to determine the entire extent of Sunday’s earthquake. Still, its magnitude indicates that it “most certainly caused major damage.”
The quake struck at 9:46 a.m. local time at a depth of 90 kilometres, according to the US Geological Survey (56 miles). There was no tsunami hazard for the region, according to NOAA.
Papua New Guinea is located on the island of New Guinea’s eastern half, east of Indonesia and north of eastern Australia. It is located on the Pacific’s “Ring of Fire,” an arc of seismic faults that circles the Pacific Ocean and is the site of much of the world’s earthquakes and volcanic activity.
