7.0-magnitude earthquake hits western Papua New Guinea: USGS

Sydney: A powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake shook northwestern Papua New Guinea before dawn Monday, according to the US Geological Survey.

The temblor struck 97 kilometers (60 miles) from the coastal town of Wewak at a depth of 62 kilometers, and occurred shortly after 4:00 am local time, the USGS reported.

No tsunami order was issued.

Loosening of soft ground in the quake zone has potential to cause damage to communities in the area, the USGS said, although the area is sparsely populated.

Such loosening, known as liquefaction, can cause substantial subsidence and horizontal sliding of the ground and result in major damage, the seismology agency said.

The earthquake shook an area about 100 kilometers east of the border with Indonesia on the island of New Guinea.

The remote New Britain region, part of an archipelago in eastern Papua New Guinea, was struck by a magnitude 6.2 earthquake in late February.