QuakeIndex

Earthquake · reviewed by a seismologist

M 5.3mww

72 km NW of Finschhafen, Papua New Guinea

· 54 km deep · released about 1.3 kilotons of TNT

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Distance rings around the epicentre, with the nearest towns at their true direction and later quakes as coloured dots. Not a shaking map — see the USGS ShakeMap for that.
When
Magnitude
M 5.3 (mww)
Depth
54 km below the surface
Felt
no reports yet
Status
Reviewed by a seismologist

USGS · last changed by USGS · we first saw it 7 days ago

A magnitude 5.3 earthquake was recorded 72 km NW of Finschhafen, Papua New Guinea at 23:30 UTC on 2026-09-24. This was a moderate earthquake. Shaking at this size can damage poorly built structures close to the epicentre.

How big was it?

This earthquake released about 1.3 kilotons of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 6.3 would have released about 32 times as much.

  1. Northridge, California 1994 M 6.7 130× the energy of this one
  2. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 5.6× the energy of this one
  3. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 4× the energy of this one
  4. This earthquake M 5.3 about 1.3 kilotons of TNT
  5. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 this one released 2,800× more

Energy from the Gutenberg–Richter relation (log10E = 1.5M + 4.8), rounded to two figures; bar length is magnitude, which is already a logarithm of energy. Magnitudes of past earthquakes from the USGS catalogue.

Where

Epicentre -6.0863, 147.3935. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Aftershocks so far

1 earthquake has been recorded within 50 km since this one.

  1. 4.6 76 km NNE of Lae, Papua New Guinea

Counted from the QuakeIndex database, which ingests the USGS feed every 30 seconds · as of . QuakeIndex does not forecast aftershocks. When USGS issues an operational aftershock forecast it appears on the USGS event page.

On USGS

QuakeIndex does not issue warnings. For earthquake early warning see ShakeAlert.