Very strong deep earthquake under Bougainville Island, Papua New Guinea

Very strong deep earthquake under Bougainville Island, Papua New Guinea
December 13, 2010 By Armand Vervaeck


A very strong earthquake (luckily) at an intermediate depth occurred around noon (local time) in the South-Western part of Bougainville island.
The earthquake was certainly felt by all people on the island and even on the neighboring islands.
The bigger depth makes the FEEL radius a lot bigger than shallower earthquakes.
The bigger depth will have eased the possible impact a lot, but even at this big depth people reported a Mercalli VI (Buin) to VII (Arawa) in areas at a distance of 20 km from the epicenter location.
As the earthquake occurred under the island, there was never a Tsunami risk.
Papua New Guinea is almost continuously struck by earthquakes. They are regularly reaching violent levels.
Most of the time we never here anything on damage or injuries as the islands are very vast with a lot of wilderness and small tribal villages. The mostly wooden and bamboo houses are limiting the risk on fatalities in case of collapse.
GDACS issued soon after the earthquake occurred a GREEN earthquake alert = very limited chance on damage and/or injuries, something which Earthquake-Report.com is eager that it will be confirmed.

Most important Earthquake Data:
Magnitude : Mw 6.1
UTC time : Monday, December 13, 2010 at 01:14:43 UTC
Local time at epicenter : Monday, December 13, 2010 at 11:14:43 AM at epicenter
Depth (Hypocenter) : 146,9
QUAKE-MAPS.COM earthquake map with experienced Modified Mercalli shaking values
Geo-location(s) :
Approx. 20 km from Buin, Bougainville, Papua New Guinea
40 km (25 miles) SSE of Arawa, Bougainville, Papua New Guinea



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