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On 5/15/2011 6:37:14 PM UTC an earthquake of magnitude 6.6 and depth 70km has struck an unpopulated area in the Northern Solomons Province (population: 0.1 million) in Papua New Guinea. GDACS estimates the likelihood for need of international humanitarian intervention to be low (Green alert). It is likely that a tsunami was generated. The maximum tsunami wave height near the coast of Sipai will be 0.02m. Please refer to the GDACS tsunami report for more details. This earthquake can have a low humanitarian impact since the affected region is unpopulated and has medium resilience for natural disasters. The nearest populated places are [None]. It is a mountainous region with a maximum altitude of 2605 m.
Caution: this information is based on risk models. Whether international humanitarian aid is needed must be decided by an
expert.
This report was automatically updated by a computer on: 5/15/2011 6:54:44 PM UTC (17 minutes after the event) Explanation of alert calculation: Show Tsunami wave height |
Earthquake epicentre: best estimate |
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Geological map
Characteristics for this report
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Previous reports for this earthquake.
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The population in the area of this earthquake if 0 people/km?. (Data source).
The earthquake occurred at 4h local time. At this time a day, more people are at home and therefore more vulnerable to collapsing residential buildings. During traffic hours, people can be affected by collapsing bridges and other road infrastructure.
| Population Data | ||
|---|---|---|
| Radius (km) | Population | Density (people/km?) |
| 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 5 | 0 | 0 |
| 10 | 0 | 0 |
| 20 | 0 | 0 |
| 50 | 1989 | 0 |
| 100 | 51050 | 1 |
| 200 | 159818 | 1 |
The affected region has low level of urban area (0%) and a low level of cultivated area (0.5%). In urban areas more damage can be expected than in cultivated or natural areas. (Data source)
| Radius (km) | urban areas | cultivated areas | other |
|---|---|---|---|
| 200 | 0% | 0.56% | 99.43% |
| 100 | 0% | 1.48% | 98.51% |
| 50 | 0% | 0.26% | 99.73% |
| 10 | 0% | 0% | 1000% |
Resilience is the capacity of the population to cope with a hazard. Since much of investments in earthquake preparedness and available funds for quick response is related to household income, the GDP per capita can be used as a rough indicator of resilience.
Papua New Guinea has a GDP per capita of 1007 PPP$ (Parity Purchasing Power Dollar, about 1 Euro) and is therefore part of the medium level income countries. Therefore, the earthquake happened in an area of medium resilience.
Based on the combination of 9 indicators, ECHO attributes Papua New Guinea a medium vulnerability.
| ECHO Intervention Priority Ranking for Papua New Guinea | |
|---|---|
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| Overall situation | |
| Human Development |
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| Human Poverty |
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| Exposure to Major Disasters | |
| Natural Disasters |
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| Conflicts |
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| Humanitarian effects of population movement | |
| Refugees and IDPs |
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| Health of children under five | |
| Undernourishment |
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| Mortality rates |
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| Other vulnerability factors | |
| Access to health care |
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| Prevalence of HIV, TBC and malaria |
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| Gender-specific Human Development |
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| Gini Index |
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Source ECHO Key:
Bad -
Medium -
Good -
No data | |
Both conditions for survival and conditions for delivering aid strongly depend on the current weather and temperature. The following graphs show the current and forecast weather.
Current weather conditions and forecasts at earthquake location (lat: -6.102 - long: 154.444) (Data source).
More detailed observations at closest weather station (Buka): WeatherByWeb - NOAA
Landslides: The maximum slope in the area of the earthquake is 38.313%
and the maximum altitude is 2605 m. Since this is a medium
slope, the risk of earthquake induced landslides is medium.
Note, however, that the slope data is not reliable on a local scale, while
landslides depend very much on local topography, soil and meteorological
conditions. More...
Tsunami:
the JRC tsunami wave propagation models indicated a unknown likelihood for a destructive tsunami.
However, this probability must be confirmed by oceanographic measurements or
observations.
See full report.
The following critical infrastructure is nearby and could be affected by the earthquake:
Nuclear power plants:
There are no nuclear facilities nearby the epicenter.
Hydrodams:
There are no hydrodam facilities nearby the epicenter.
The distance to nuclear installations is evaluated based on a 1999 UN dataset containing the location of nuclear plants in the world. If plants are near and the earthquake magnitude is above 6.5, the alert is set to orange. Note that the location of plants is approximate with errors of up to 100km.
The nearest civilian airport (Buka) is at 81km from the epicenter. Other airports are: Mono (190km), Ballalae (186km), Buin (153km), Oria (146km), Lehu (142km), Arawa (107km), Tonu (129km), Aropa (142km), Karato (101km), Boku (86km), Torokina (98km), Kurwina (98km), Manetai (99km), Wakunai (91km), Inus (86km), Sabah (89km), Dios (85km), Buka (81km), Karoola (95km), Green Islands (183km)
Ports nearby are: Blanche Harbour (190km), Shortland Harbor (192km), Shortland Harbour (188km), Kieta (130km), Keita (135km), Anewa Bay (121km), Buka (80km), Queen Carola Harbor (107km), Nissan Island (173km)
While we try everything to ensure accuracy, this information is purely indicative and should not be used for any decision making without alternate sources of information. The JRC is not responsible for any damage or loss resulting from the use of the information presented on this website.
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Information on this website is collected from scientific
and media sources in participation with European Commission Joint Research Centre,
UNOSAT and OCHA ReliefWeb.
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Population
Density near epicenter (people/km2). Image area: 6x4 decimal
degrees (approx. 650x450km2).
previous estimates: 
5/15/2011 6:37:14 PM (UTC, Universal Standard Time)
