EARTHQUAKEM6.0

M6.0 earthquake near Kokopo, Papua New Guinea

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

A magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck 126 km (78 mi) south of Kokopo, Papua New Guinea on Tuesday, October 13, 2026 at 18:45 UTC, at a depth of 21 km (13 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.

1 person reported feeling it to USGS “Did You Feel It?”.

MagnitudeM6.0
Depth21 km (13 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 13 18:45
Location5.48°S 152.14°E
Nearest townKokopo · 126 km
Energy15 kilotons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+10
Tsunami flagNo
PAGER alertGREEN
Felt reports1
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 47 km (29 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 5,774 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 6.0 released roughly the energy of 15 kilotons of TNT, about as much as the Hiroshima atomic bomb. That is about 1,000 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 180,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 12 days after it, USGS recorded 10 smaller earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi). The largest was a magnitude 5.1 on October 18 at 22:31 UTC.

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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