Renagi Ravu was meeting with two colleagues at his home in the Papua New Guinea highlands Sunday morning when a huge magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck.
September 11, 2022
Renagi Ravu was meeting with two colleagues at his home in the Papua New Guinea highlands Sunday morning when a huge magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck.
Ravu tried to stand up from his chair but couldn’t maintain his balance and ended up in a kind of group hug with his colleagues, while plates and cups crashed from his shelves to the ground. His children, ages 9 and 2, had their drinks and breakfast spill over.
Ravu, who is a geologist, said he tried to calm everybody as the shaking continued for more than a minute.
The extent of the damage and whether there have been serious injuries or deaths from the quake was not clear in the immediate aftermath in the remote and underdeveloped region.
Ravu said that about 10,000 people live in and around his town of Kainantu, which is located 66 kilometers (41 miles) from the quake’s epicenter and was the nearest big town to the quake. He said there are many scattered settlements in the highlands, and tens of thousands of people might have been affected.
