Powerful earthquake hits Papua New Guinea
An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.7 has struck Papua New Guinea, according to reports.
The quake hit at 2004 GMT on Wednesday, according to the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences.
It was at a depth of 10 km (6.21 miles), GFZ said.
It’s the latest in a string of earthquakes, some of which have caused devastation around the world this summer.
A 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit the Philippines in June, triggering a tsunami. Twin quakes with magnitudes over 7.0 struck Venezuela back-to-back the same month, killing thousands. In July, a 6.8-magnitude tremor rattled Japan, and a 7.3 hit off the coast of southern Mexico.
Earlier this month, a 7.4-magnitude earthquake shocked Colombia, one of the largest there in years, and a 7.7 displaced some 40,000 people in Indonesia. This week, a 4.9 quake led to evacuations of hundreds in Spain.
Experts say this number of earthquakes in a short span of time is not unusual.
“There’s nothing I’m seeing here that is unusual; this is all within the typical variations in earthquake rates that we see,” said Zachary Ross, a professor of geophysics at Caltech.
Earthquakes happen when pieces of the Earth underground, known as tectonic plates, rub up against each other, creating the shaking sensation we feel on the surface. The quakes help release heat from the planet’s core.
Over 7.0 – the second-highest level on the Richter scale that measures earthquake strength – is considered to be “major” and can cause serious damage over larger areas.
