54km (34mi) SE of Kokopo, Papua New Guinea —
A major earthquake with a magnitude 7.7 struck off Papua New Guinea on Monday, official monitors said, and a tsunami warning was issued soon after.
The epicentre of the quake was near the town of Rabaul in the northeast of Papua New Guinea, The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii said “hazardous tsunami waves are possible for coasts located within 1,000 km (620 miles) of the earthquake epicentre along the coasts of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands”. No destructive, Pacific-wide tsunami was expected, it said.
The Australia-Pacific plate boundary is over 4000 km long on the northern margin, from the Sunda (Java) trench in the west to the Solomon Islands in the east.
The eastern section is over 2300 km long, extending west from northeast of the Australian continent and the Coral Sea until it intersects the east coast of Papua New Guinea.
The boundary is dominated by the general northward subduction of the Australia plate.
More info/map here. M7.7 – 54km SE of Kokopo, Papua New Guinea
Featured Image: @juliemela/Twitter
