Sydney - The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii has issued an alert for the Pacific after a powerful 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck Papua New Guinea on Sunday.
The undersea earthquake struck 41km northwest of Panguna on the Papua New Guinea autonomous island of Bougainville at 3.30pm local time, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said.
The USGS initially put magnitude of the massive earthquake at 8.0, and then downgraded it to 7.9 magnitude.
"Hazardous tsunami waves from this earthquake are possible within the next three hours along some coasts of Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Nauru, Pohnpei, Kosrae, Vanuatu, Chuuk and Indonesia," the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said in a statement.
"Tsunami waves reaching 0.3 to 1 meter above the tide level are possible for some coasts of Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea," the statement said.
There is no tsunami threat to the Australian mainland, the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre said. – SAnews-Xinhua
