EARTHQUAKEM5.1

M5.1 earthquake near Kokopo, Papua New Guinea

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

A magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck 123 km (76 mi) south of Kokopo, Papua New Guinea on Tuesday, October 13, 2026 at 16:28 UTC, at a depth of 37 km (23 mi), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Shallow quakes like this one shake the surface hardest.

MagnitudeM5.1
Depth37 km (23 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 13 16:28
Location5.45°S 152.10°E
Nearest townKokopo · 123 km
Energy674 tons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+9
Tsunami flagNo
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 52 km (32 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.

How strong was it?

Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step releases about 32 times more energy. This magnitude 5.1 released roughly the energy of 674 tons of TNT. That is about 45 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 4,000,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 13 days after it, USGS recorded 9 smaller earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi). The largest was a magnitude 5.0 on October 22 at 20:05 UTC.

A stronger magnitude 6.0 followed on October 13 at 18:45 UTC, about 6 km (4 mi) away, so this one is now considered a foreshock.

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 485 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 13, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

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