People in coastal parts of Papua New Guinea's Islands region fled inland amid a tsunami warning following a 7.9 earthquake yesterday.
The quake struck in PNG's autonomous region of Bougainville, 41 kilometres west north west of Panguna at a depth of 136 kilometres around 2:30pm local time
Aloysius Laukai from Bougainville's New Dawn FM said the quake was strongly felt around the region, but there are no reports through yet of deaths, injury or major damage.
He said there were understood to be some landslides in the southern part of Bougainville, and instances of water tanks falling over, plus items falling off shelves in shops.
An initial tsunami alert for several Pacific islands was wound back to cover just PNG and the neighbouring Solomon Islands and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center later said the tsunami threat had passed safely for those countries.
Chris McKee, assistant director at PNG's Geophysical Observatory Office in Port Moresby, said there were no initial reports of damage or casualties from near the epicentre of the quake, which is sparsely populated.
