Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Impact of PNG earthquakes still being assessed

Posted at 02:12 on 19 July, 2010 UTC

Papua New Guinea’s disaster management office will take most of today to assess the damage caused by last night’s earthquake.

Two earthquakes, measured at magnitude 7.3 and 7.1 and triggering a tsunami warning, struck the island of New Britain.

Leo Mapmani, the operations manager at the West New Britain provincial disaster office, says there’ve been reports of some damage.

“Mainly bush material houses in the villages and the oil palm settlement areas, and semi-permanent houses. After our assessmentwe will come up with the needs that we need to get helping the people. But at this stage, the reports that we have is mainly houses collapsing and some water tanks bursting.”

Leo Mapmani says several of the stores in Kimbe town, in West New Britain, have been closed this morning while they clean up damaged stock.