EARTHQUAKEM6.2

M6.2 earthquake near Panguna, Papua New Guinea

Map: the earthquake near Panguna, Papua New Guinea, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck 86 km (53 mi) south-southeast of Panguna, Papua New Guinea on Sunday, October 11, 2026 at 14:07 UTC, at a depth of 31 km (19 mi), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Shallow quakes like this one shake the surface hardest.

USGS’s PAGER impact estimate is GREEN: little or no damage expected.

MagnitudeM6.2
Depth31 km (19 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 11 14:07
Location7.05°S 155.75°E
Nearest townPanguna · 86 km
Energy30 kilotons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+0
Tsunami flagNo
PAGER alertGREEN
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 59 km (37 mi) from the boundary between the Australian and Pacific plates. Most earthquakes happen along plate boundaries like this one, where the pieces of Earth’s outer shell collide, pull apart or grind past each other. Stress builds up over years until the rock suddenly slips.

The red lines on the map are plate boundaries.

What kind of fault?

USGS’s analysis of the seismic waves shows it was a thrust (reverse) earthquake: one block of crust was pushed up and over another, as happens where plates collide.

Shaking and impact

The strongest shaking USGS estimates was intensity 6 on the Modified Mercalli scale: strong. About 87,882 people were exposed to moderate shaking or stronger (intensity 5 and up). USGS’s PAGER system estimates it most likely caused no deaths (90 percent probability). Early estimates are revised as reports come in.

How strong was it?

Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step releases about 32 times more energy. This magnitude 6.2 released roughly the energy of 30 kilotons of TNT, about 2 times the Hiroshima atomic bomb. That is about 2,000 times the energy of a magnitude 4.0, a quake people nearby feel but that rarely causes damage. The strongest earthquake ever recorded, magnitude 9.5 in Chile in 1960, released about 89,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 15 days after it, USGS recorded no smaller earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi).

Outside the United States, USGS mainly lists quakes of about magnitude 4 and up, so smaller aftershocks there are undercounted.

Earthquake history here

Before this earthquake, USGS had recorded 221 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or larger within 300 km (186 mi) since 1900. The strongest:

Official details, updates and the shaking map: USGS event page.

See every earthquake on October 11, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

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