Ravu tried to get up from his chair but couldn’t keep his balance and ended up in a sort of group hug with his colleagues while plates and cups fell from his shelves to the ground. His children, ages 9 and 2, had spilled their drinks and breakfast. Ravu, who is a geologist, said he tried to calm everyone down as the shaking continued for more than a minute. The extent of the damage and whether there were any serious injuries or deaths from the quake was not immediately clear in the remote and undeveloped area. Ravu said about 10,000 people live in and around the town of Kainantu, which is 66 kilometers (41 miles) from the epicenter and was the closest major city to the quake. He said there are many scattered settlements in the highlands and tens of thousands of people may have been affected. He said people felt shaken. “It’s common for earthquakes to be felt here, but usually it doesn’t last as long and it’s not as violent as this one,” Ravu said. “It was pretty intense.” On Sunday morning, Ravu was still sorting out the damage to his home, which he said likely included a broken sewer pipe, judging by the smell. He said friends elsewhere in Kainantu had texted him with descriptions of cracked roads, broken pipes and falling debris, but no major building collapses or injuries. “They are starting to clean their houses and streets,” he said. Communication appears to have been affected, he added, with some cell phone towers possibly down. A magnitude 7.5 earthquake in 2018 in the central region of the country killed at least 125 people. This earthquake struck areas that are remote and underdeveloped, and estimates of the extent of damage and injuries have been slow to filter in. Felix Taranu, a seismologist at the Geophysical Observatory in the capital Port Moresby, said it was too early to know the impact of Sunday’s quake, although its strength meant it “probably caused significant damage”. According to the US Geological Survey, the earthquake occurred at 9:46 am. local time at a depth of 90 kilometers (56 miles). NOAA has since advised that there is no tsunami threat for the area. Papua New Guinea is located in the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, east of Indonesia and north of eastern Australia. It is located on the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’, the arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean where much of the world’s earthquakes and volcanic activity occurs.
