A 5.5 magnitude earthquake struck Papua New Guinea on Tuesday morning.
The quake hit just southwest of Mendi, in the Southern Highlands Province of the island nation above Queensland, about 3am local time.
It struck at a depth of 9km, according to Geoscience Australia.
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This is considered relatively shallow for an earthquake, and even moderate earthquakes which occur at shallow depths can prove damaging, as they occur closer to the surface.
“For shallow earthquakes with magnitudes larger than 6, they are usually very destructive in producing significant damages to the infrastructure and society,” according to Earthquake Science.
The tremor was picked up by instruments in seismograph stations in North Queensland and Darwin, according to Geoscience Australia, but there would have been no perceptible shaking in Australia, and no tsunami alerts have been released for Australia.
It is unclear at this stage how many people felt the quake in PNG on Tuesday.
The population in the Southern Highlands Province of PNG is 602,085, with about 28 per cent of those residents living in Mendi, according to 2024 Census data.
The tremor comes one week after a 5.9 magnitude earthquake hit the northeast coast of PNG last Tuesday, according to The United States Geological Survey (USGS).
The earthquake southwest of Mendi on Tuesday rattled PNG one week after a similar tremor hit the island country near Madang. Credit: Geoscience Australia
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