M 6.5 in Papua New Guinea on 20 May 2025 15:05 UTC

Event summary

This earthquake can have a medium humanitarian impact based on the magnitude and the affected population and their vulnerability.

GDACS ID EQ 1482609
Earthquake Magnitude: 6.5M
Glide number: EQ-2025-000067-PNG
Depth: 10 Km
Lat/Lon: -3.7535 , 144.8032
Event Date: 20 May 2025 15:05 UTC
21 May 2025 01:05 Local
Exposed Population: 10 thousand (in MMI>=VII)
Inserted at: 21 May 2025 21:16 UTC
INFORM Coping capacity:
1.1 (Papua New Guinea)
Maximum Wave Height observed: 0.05 m

GDACS Score

For more info on GDACS alert score click here.
  Earthquake
(Shakemap)		 Tsunami GDACS score
NEIC 1.3 0.1 1.3
us7000q0bm Scaled population (raster) 3.05 Max wave alert 0.13m  
  C1 shakemap -0.59 Max wave realtime 0.13m  
  C2 shakemap 0.53      
  Country Vulnerability 0      
  INFORM_normalised 1.3      
Maximum expected impact using different data sources.
Virtual OSOCC
Meteo assessment
Satellite products
Analytical products
Papua New Guinea - Earthquake (ECHO 26 May 2025)Wed, 21 May 2025 09:56

  • An earthquake of 6.4 M at a depth of 10 km occurred across northern Papua New Guinea on 20 May at 15.05 UTC (21 May at 1.05 local time). The epicentre was located offshore in the Bismarck Sea, approximately 20 km north of the coast between the East Sepik province and the Madang province, near the Gabun town (Madang province).
  • USGS PAGER estimates that up to 7,000 people were exposed to very strong shaking, 36,000 to strong shaking, and 156,000 to moderate shaking.
  • According to media, as of 21 May at 7.00 UTC, there are no initial reports of casualties and major damage.
Detailed event map. European Union, 2026. Map produced by EC-JRC.
The boundaries and the names shown on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the European Union.

Updates on volcanic activity (Smithsonian)

Estimated casualties (PAGER)

USGS estimates the number of casualties for each earthquake for the Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER) product.
The graph shows the current fatalities estimate.

Exposed population

Data, images, links, services and documents

For this events, GDACS has links to information from the following sources: EC-JRC (90), NEIC (6), OCHA (1), WMO (2), USGS (5), (3), INFORM (4),