Papua New Guinea earthquake: 5.8 quake strikes Ring of Fire
PAPUA New Guinea – located on the Ring of Fire – has been rocked by an earthquake measuring 5.8 on the Richter Scale.
By LAURA MOWAT
Express.co.uk
Wed, Aug 22, 2018
The quake struck 81km from Panguna in Papua New Guinea.
Papua New Guinea rests on the so-called ‘Ring of Fire’ – a hotbed of seismic activity surrounding a tectonic plate that spans the pacific.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) have reported that there is a low likelihood of casualties and damage from the quake.
Many people in Papua New Guinea live in homes that are not vulnerable to earthquakes and are made from metal and timber.
Recent earthquakes in this area have caused secondary hazards such as landslides that might have contributed to losses.
The Ring of Fire is formed of a string of 452 volcanoes and is a horseshoe-shaped fault line.
It stretches from North and South America to Japan and New Zealand and since 1850, the majority of the most powerful eruptions have occurred within its fault lines.
Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands have been hit by the earthquake.
Papua New Guinea is a country in the southwestern Pacific known for its beaches and cora reefs.
This earthquake has struck as experts have voiced concern that unrest in the Ring of Fire could cause a huge earthquake in California.
Experts have been warning for some time that California is overdue a large earthquake, and shaking around the Ring of Fire could be a precursor to this.
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