An earthquake of magnitude 7.6 shook Papua New Guinea on Sunday, where damaged buildings, caused landslides and left at least two dead and many injured. Residents of towns in the north of this Pacific island nation reported the strong movement in the middle of the morning that opened cracks in carts and knocked down masonry from buildings.
MP Kessy Sawang, originally from the area, He indicated that at least two people died in some mountain villages, adding that four other victims were taken to hospital in critical condition. “There has been extensive damage“, the deputy told AFP. As detailed, a landslide buried several houses and left another town “split in two”, in which people “lost their houses”.
Lawmaker Kessy Sawang reported that in the remote mountain village of Matoko one person was buried in a mudslide while others were seriously injured and had to be taken to hospital. Sawang expressed his fear that there would be more deaths and injuries among neighbors surrounding the Finisterre mountain range and coastal areas, where there are “people and houses buried and destroyed.”
The earthquake had its epicenter 67 km from the town of Kainantu with a depth of 61 km, said the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
Blackouts and damage to buildings were reported in many parts of Papua New Guinea. The telluric movement was felt as far as the capital, Port Moresby, 480 km away. Images and videos of the damage to a university in the mountainous town of Goroka (east) showed cracks in the walls and window awnings that fell during the earthquake. Residents of Lae and Madang, close to the epicenter, said they felt it more strongly than previous earthquakes.
(You can read: UN: 10 catastrophes in one year had a cost of 280,000 million dollars).
“Very strong, everything was like sitting in the sea, floatingsaid Hivi Apokore, a worker at the Jais Aben Resort near Madang.
While, In Indonesian waters, two other strong earthquakes were recorded that shook the Mentawai Islands on Sunday, 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 no personal or material damage was initially reported. Papua New Guinea sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” making it prone to tremors. In neighboring Indonesia, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake in 2004 triggered a tsunami that killed 220,000 people in the region, including some 170,000 in Indonesia.
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