Sunday, August 15, 2010
A second powerful earthquake of magnitude 6.3 has struck the island of New Britain in the Pacific Ocean region around Papua New Guinea, just 11 days after a damaging 7.0 quake left the western side of the island without power and communications for almost three days.
The epicenter of the quake, reported by the USGS to have struck at a depth of 197.2km (119.2 miles), was just 149 km (93 miles) from the main town on New Britain, Kandrian.
It hit at 1.10AM local time, Monday 16 August (15:09 UTC, Sunday 15 August).
There are no initial reports at time of press of casualties or damage, and no word at this time from the PTWC of any impending threat of a tsunami.