Canberra, July 25 (Xinhua) A powerful earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale rattled Bougainville island of Papua New Guinea Saturday morning but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualty, seismologists said.
The quake, which struck at 11:42 a.m. (01:42 GMT), was about 80 km west of Arawa city at a depth of 65 km, according the US Geological Survey.
“At this stage we have not received any reports of any damage,” a spokesman for Papua New Guinea’s national earthquakes centre said.
“We have not had any report of such activity as a tsunami, but normally (with) earthquakes of about 6.2 we rarely anticipate tsunamis along our coastline,” he added.
Papua New Guinea sits on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where continental plates meet. The region is frequently hit by earthquakes.
