Magnitude 6.0 aftershock rattles quake-hit PNG highlands as toll rises

A local stands next to a damaged house near a landslide in the town of Tari after an earthquake struck Papua New Guinea's Southern Highlands in this image taken February 27, 2018 obtained from social media. Francis Ambrose/via REUTERS

By Tom Westbrook

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Strong aftershocks rocked Papua New Guinea’s remote and rugged highlands on Monday, as the death toll climbed to 55 from a 7.5-magnitude earthquake a week ago, and is expected to rise further.

Three aftershocks of magnitude greater than 5 shook the mountainous Southern Highlands, about 600 km (370 miles) northwest of the capital Port Moresby early on Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, including a shallow magnitude 6 quake.

“We haven’t slept. It’s been shaking all through the night,” William Bando, provincial administrator of Hela Province, said by telephone from Tari, about 40 km (25 miles) from the site of the shocks.

“What we experienced this morning could have caused more damage, but we don’t know … it almost threw me out of bed.”

The region had already been badly damaged on Feb. 26, when the largest quake to hit the seismically-active highlands in nearly a century flattened buildings, triggered landslides, and closed oil and gas operations.

The toll on Monday stood at 55 killed, said James Justin, a research officer at the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy in Port Moresby, as news of more deaths arrived in the capital by shortwave radio.

Most of the confirmed fatalities were in and around the provincial capital of Mendi and the township of Tari, he said, where landslides buried homes and buildings collapsed on families.

“People are in great fear of their lives as the quakes are continuing ever since it started,” he said. “They actually want to know when it will stop.”

While the region has no major urban centres, around 670,000 people live within 100 km (62 miles) of the epicentre, according to the Red Cross.

The quake has been felt on global natural gas markets, with ExxonMobil Corp declaring force majeure on exports from Papua New Guinea, according to an industry source, pushing Asian spot liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices 5 percent higher.

The company declined to comment on the force majeure, but said production would be knocked out for about 8 weeks.

Aid agencies have said nearly 150,000 people remain in urgent need of emergency supplies.

Australia, New Zealand and the Red Cross have all pledged aid, though reaching the remote area has proven challenging as forbidding terrain, bad weather, as well as damaged roads and runways have delayed aid efforts.

“The only way for people to go out is by chopper, and it’s slow for information to come through”, said Martin Mose, director of Papua New Guinea’s National Disaster Centre, which has yet to complete a full assessment of damage.

(Reporting by Tom Westbrook in Sydney; Additional reporting by Charlotte Greenfield in Wellington; Editing by Robin Pomeroy and Clarence Fernandez)

Powerful quake strikes off Papua New Guinea, tsunami alert wound back

By Harry Pearl

SYDNEY (Reuters) – A 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck off Papua New Guinea (PNG) on Sunday, but there were no reports of casualties or damage after a potential tsunami did not occur.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) downgraded the quake from an initial measurement of magnitude 8. It struck some 47 kms (29 miles) west of Arawa on the north coast of Bougainville Island at a depth of 154 km (96 miles), the USGS reported.

An initial tsunami alert for several Pacific islands was wound back to cover just PNG and the neighboring Solomon Islands and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center later said the tsunami threat had passed safely for those countries.

Quakes are common in Papua New Guinea, which sits on the Pacific’s “Ring of Fire”, a hotspot for seismic activity due to friction between tectonic plates.

Loti Yates, the director of the Solomon Islands National Disaster Management Office, said people had been told to move to higher ground in Choiseul and Western Province.

Chris McKee, assistant director at PNG’s Geophysical Observatory Office in Port Moresby, said there were no initial reports of damage or casualties from near the epicenter of the quake, which is sparsely populated.

Australia and New Zealand both said they had assessed the threat and there was no danger to their coastlines.

Bougainville Island is one of the islands that make up the Autonomous Region of Bougainville within Papua New Guinea (PNG) which is home to around 300,000 people.

(Additional reporting by Charlotte Greenfield in WELLINGTON; Writing by Jane Wardell; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Christian Schmollinger)

7.9 earthquake hits Saturday in Ring of Fire’s, Papua New Guinea

By Jonathan Barrett and Harry Pearl

SYDNEY (Reuters) – People living along Papua New Guinea’s coastline fled to higher ground on Saturday after a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck east of the Pacific nation, triggering a tsunami warning for parts of its archipelago.

A couple of hours after the quake, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) said the threat had largely passed, although it said government agencies should continue to monitor coastal tides.

“Based on all available data … the tsunami threat from this earthquake has now passed,” the PTWC said in an updated and final alert after the quake, which struck 157 km (98 miles) east of Rabaul.

The major tremor initially triggered a more widespread tsunami warning for the Pacific region, including Indonesia and the Solomon Islands, but that was pulled back after the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) downgraded the magnitude slightly from 8. It also revised the depth of the tremor to 103.2 km from its original estimate of 73 kms.

Many residents in the northern parts of the autonomous region of Bougainville sought higher ground amid warnings that tsunami waves were possible.

“The town residents have vacated the whole place; those in the villages live higher up, so they’re ok, it’s just those near the coast,” local resident Christabel Biasu told Reuters by phone.

Quakes are common in Papua New Guinea, which sits on the Pacific’s “Ring of Fire”, a hotspot for seismic activity due to friction between tectonic plates. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties after Saturday’s major tremor.

A nurse at Buka General Hospital in Bougainville said the quake was so strong it felt like the building she was sleeping in would topple. She said patients were being moved a few kilometers to higher ground.

“We have about 16 beds,” she told Reuters by phone, declining to give her name. “Most of them are already a suburb up.”

The small Pacific nation of Nauru, where one of Australia’s offshore immigration detention centers is located, had a tsunami warning in place, according to the official government Twitter account.

Residents in other parts of Papua New Guinea, including the capital of Port Moresby and Kavieng in the northern tip of New Ireland island, said they had not felt the quake, and no evacuation plans were in place.

New Zealand also canceled an earlier tsunami warning.

(Writing by Jane Wardell; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)