Qualla: 2022 Papua New Guinea Earthquake

2022 Papua New Guinea Earthquake: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. At around 10:46 in the morning on Sunday, 11 September 2022, the ground under the Finisterre Range of Papua New Guinea shifted 61 kilometers below the surface. The magnitude 7.6 jolt that followed lasted more than a minute in places, long enough for people to run from houses, for cracks to open in roads, for seven stories of concrete dormitory at the University of Goroka to sway and split. Shaking was felt across the country and across the border into Indonesian Papua. When the ground finally stopped moving and families began counting their people, 21 were dead. Most had been taken by the landslides the earthquake loosened from the mountain slopes above them.

Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

2022 Papua New Guinea Earthquake: An Unquiet Place

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit user:S19991002, CC BY 3.0. Papua New Guinea sits at one of the most active tectonic junctions on Earth. Here, the Australian Plate grinds northeast against the Pacific Plate, and between them a clutter of microplates - the South Bismarck, the Solomon Sea, the Woodlark - twists and slips in ways that genera...

Image: user:S19991002 | CC BY 3.0

2022 Papua New Guinea Earthquake: What Fell on People

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. Eleven of the dead were in Morobe Province, closest to the epicenter. Five died in Madang Province, five more in the Eastern Highlands. Three miners were killed at Wau, a gold-mining town perched among steep ridges where landslides have always been part of the bargain. In the Naw...

Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

2022 Papua New Guinea Earthquake: Infrastructure, Stunned

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Ramu hydropower station at Kainantu took damage that knocked out electricity across Madang and Morobe Provinces. The Highlands Highway - the single road that connects the interior to the coast at Lae - cracked at Markham and Ramu. Submarine telecommunications cables running f...

Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

2022 Papua New Guinea Earthquake: Old Warnings

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. In July 2022 - two months before the earthquake - a research article published in The Conversation carried the blunt title "Not if, but when: unless Papua New Guinea prepares now, the next big earthquake could wreak havoc in Lae." The authors were right about the timing and almos...

Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

2022 Papua New Guinea Earthquake: The Long Work of Recovery

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Carport, CC BY-SA 3.0. Mission Aviation Fellowship - a small-plane flying service that has served PNG's remote communities for decades - flew aerial surveys above Morobe Province in the days after the quake, mapping landslides and trying to determine which villages were cut off. Many communities in the...

Image: Carport | CC BY-SA 3.0