A powerful magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck deep under Papua New Guinea on Sunday, causing damage and blackouts but no tsunami hours after the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued an alert for nearby islands. The mid-afternoon quake struck at a depth of 167 kilometers (103 miles) beneath the eastern province of Bougainville, where Papua New
Guinea and the Solomon Islands meet in a continuous South Pacific archipelago, said Chris McKee, assistant director of Papua New Guinea Geophysical Observatory in Port Moresby. No casualties were reported. But there was damage in parts of central Bougainville and the major town of Arawa, Aloysius Laukai, manager of New Dawn FM Bougainville radio station, said in an email. READ MORE
Advertisement
I suspect that the number and intensity of earthquakes will increase in the next decades. Chain of causes: human overpopulation -> global warming -> melting ice on north/south pole and glaciers -> increase of weight of oceans -> tectonic plate movements and deformations -> earthquakes.