{"id":854915,"date":"2026-09-21T01:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T01:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/854915\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T01:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T01:44:12","slug":"magnitude-6-4-earthquake-rattles-papua-new-guinea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/854915\/","title":{"rendered":"Magnitude 6.4 earthquake rattles Papua New Guinea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A magnitude 6.4 earthquake has once again rattled the Pacific Ring of Fire \u2014 this time in Papua New Guinea.<\/p>\n<p>The earthquake struck at 9:17 a.m. UTC and was felt across the island country. <\/p>\n<p>The US Geological Survey (<a href=\"https:\/\/earthquake.usgs.gov\/earthquakes\/map\/?extent=21.65743,-130.16602&amp;extent=51.97135,-59.85352\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">USGS<\/a>) said the quake struck at a depth of about 64 miles, approximately 30 miles from Kainantu.<\/p>\n<p>The USGS said the population in this area resides in structures that are a mix of vulnerable and earthquake-resistant construction. <\/p>\n<p>Recent earthquakes in this area have caused secondary hazards such as landslides and liquefaction.<\/p>\n<p>The agency reports that the quake happened on the Australia-Pacific plate boundary, which is about 2,500 miles long, spanning from the Sunda (Java) trench in the west to the Solomon Islands.<\/p>\n<p>There have been 13 magnitude 7.5 or greater earthquakes recorded in Papua New Guinea since 1900. <\/p>\n<p>In April 2007, a magnitude 8.1 earthquake occurred, triggering a tsunami and killing at least 40 people, according to the USGS.<\/p>\n<p>Papua New Guinea is located along the Pacific Ring of Fire, which is one of the most seismically and volcanically active regions in the world. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.80599647;display:block\" decoding=\"async\"   data-modal-image=\"40907186\" width=\"1024\" height=\"567\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/shaking-felt-across-papua-new-141873408.jpg\" alt=\"Map illustration of earthquake epicenters across Papua New Guinea, with a prominent red fault line and a yellow star marking the 6.4 magnitude earthquake epicenter.\" class=\"wp-image-40907186\"\/>A magnitude 6.4 earthquake has once again rattled the Pacific Ring of Fire \u2014 this time in Papua New Guinea. USGS \/ FOX Weather<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" decoding=\"async\"   data-modal-image=\"40907192\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/alatou-milne-bay-papua-new-141873886.jpg\" alt=\"The town of Alotau in Papua New Guinea, with a small boat in the foreground and mountains in the background.\" class=\"wp-image-40907192\"\/>The USGS said the population in this area resides in structures that are a mix of vulnerable and earthquake-resistant construction.  Getty Images\/iStockphoto<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s where the Pacific Plate meets many surrounding tectonic plates.<\/p>\n<p>About 90% of the world\u2019s earthquakes and around 75% of its active volcanoes are located along the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usgs.gov\/faqs\/what-ring-fire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Ring of Fire<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The region contains roughly 452 volcanoes and stretches for about 25,000 miles, forming a horseshoe-shaped belt that runs from the southern tip of South America, along the western coasts of North and Central America, across Alaska and Russia, and then through Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A magnitude 6.4 earthquake has once again rattled the Pacific Ring of Fire \u2014 this time in Papua&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":854916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[14890,192,1682,123840,79,965],"class_list":["post-854915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-earthquakes","tag-environment","tag-natural-disasters","tag-papua-new-guinea","tag-science","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}