Pacific / Papua New Guinea

Another big tremor rocks quake-affected PNG

14:33 pm on 5 March 2018

Another big tremor has rocked quake-affected Papua New Guinea this morning.

The magnitude 6.0 earthquake is the latest in a series of powerful aftershocks that have plagued the Highlands region since the massive 7.5 struck last Monday.

The epicentre of today's quake was located 112 kilometres southwest of Porgera at a depth of 10 kilometres.

It struck just before 6am local time (9am NZT).

Due to severely disrupted transport and telecommunications links, it's still unclear how many people died in last week's 7.5 quake.

A landslide cutting of the road from Tambul to Mendi following a 7.5 earthquake. Photo: Andrew Solomon

As many as 80 deaths have been reported so far, according to the PNG Red Cross.

Aid is yet to reach many of the areas most affected by the quake as road networks and air strips have been damaged by the big quake.

Meanwhile the administrator of one of the Papua New Guinea provinces worst-hit by last week's earthquake says it is yet to get any support from the national government.

Southern Highlands province was badly damaged by last week's quake which triggered landslides, flattened buildings, cut off roads and closed oil and gas operations, which are critical to the PNG economy.

The administrator, Thomas Eluh, told EMTV that there are 35 confirmed deaths in Southern Highlands, but with some villages buried by landslides, that number could be much higher.

"There are quite a number of people that could be still buried underground at the moment and despite our efforts to try and retrieve the bodies it's quite difficult because of the magnitude of the landslips that have occured."

Thomas Eluh said the Southern Highlands has not yet received funding and resources from the National Disaster Coordination Centre in Port Moresby.

The national government has so far promised more than US$140 million for the response.