Local Tsunami Warning After Undersea Quake off PNG
Date: 12-Dec-05
Country: AUSTRALIA
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii said there was no risk of a Pacific-wide tsunami but warned the undersea quake could generate localised destructive tsunamis.
"Earthquakes of this size sometimes generate local tsunamis that can be destructive along coasts located within a hundred kilometres of the earthquake epicentre," it said in a bulletin.
"Authorities in the region should be aware of this possibility and take appropriate action."
There were no initial reports of damage in the area, but PNG natural disaster officials were not immediately available.
In July 1998, two undersea quakes measuring 7.0 created three tsunamis that killed at least 2,100 people near the town of Aitape on Papua New Guinea's north coast.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) said on its Web site that the latest quake was located in the New Britain area of the country, which lies north of Australia and east of Indonesia.
The survey, which subsequently revised its original magnitude of 6.8, said it occurred at 00:20 a.m. on Monday (1420 GMT Sunday).
Geophysicist Don Blakeman at the USGS National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado, told Reuters by phone the quake occurred "in the crust of the ocean, not on land".
Geoscience Australia said it had also recorded the quake, about 250 km (155 miles) south of Rabaul on New Britain island, but it had no indication whether it had caused a local tsunami.
New Britain, which has a population of about 20,000, lies 475 km (295 miles) northeast of the PNG capital, Port Moresby.
Several quakes higher than magnitude 6 have hit Papua New Guinea in the past three months, one undersea in the same region, but none has caused serious damage or casualties.
Seismically active, Papua New Guinea lies on "the Ring of Fire", a zone of volcanic activity which accounts for 75 percent of the world's active and dormant volcanoes.
The town of Rabaul was destroyed in the September 1994 eruption of Tuvurvur volcano.
