EARTHQUAKEM4.8

M4.8 earthquake near Kainantu, Papua New Guinea

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

A magnitude 4.8 earthquake struck 31 km (19 mi) southeast of Kainantu, Papua New Guinea on Sunday, October 18, 2026 at 00:28 UTC, at a depth of 124 km (77 mi), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. At this intermediate depth, shaking spreads out before it reaches the surface.

MagnitudeM4.8
Depth124 km (77 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 18 00:28
Location6.51°S 146.05°E
Nearest townKainantu · 31 km
Energy239 tons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+1
Tsunami flagNo
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 37 km (23 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. At 124 km down, it most likely broke inside a plate that is sinking into the mantle beneath its neighbor, in what geologists call a subduction zone.

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 4.8 released roughly the energy of 239 tons of TNT. That is about 16 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 11,000,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 8 days after it, USGS recorded 1 smaller earthquake of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi). It was a magnitude 4.2 on October 20 at 00:05 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 152 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 18, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

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