PAPUA NEW GUINEA – Reports emerging from Bougainville indicate a number of landslides after yesterday’s magnitude 7.9 earthquake.

The quake in the autonomous Papua New Guinea region struck about 40 kilometres west of Panguna at a depth of 136 kilometres.

The quake was strongly felt around the region and triggered tsunami warnings for coastal parts.

Officer with the Bougainville Police Mark Andersons said a tsunami did not eventuate.

But he said some landslides occurred in the Panguna area, including at Nagovis.

“Two men were covered with soil, but they were fortunate to dig themselves out from the ground, and they were taken to hospital. But there was no deaths.”

While provincial authorities are still gauging the extent of damages from the quake, social media dispatches from Bougainville indicate that numerous homes sustained damages and that various sealed roads have been cracked.

Another magnitude 7.9 quake struck about 50 kilometres off the coast of New Ireland province, close to Bougainville, a month ago. Asylum seeker charged with rape

PAPUA NEW GUINEA – Police in Papua New Guinea have charged an asylum seeker from Australia’s offshore detention centre on Manus Island with sexually assaulting a local teenager.

The 31-year-old Sri Lankan man has been charged with raping the 19-year-old girl at a hotel on the island on January 17.

Police said the man took the young woman to a hotel in the main town of Lorengau on the island, where he raped her three times.

Manus province police commander David Yapu said the woman was injured during the assault but managed to get away and sort help at a relative’s house.

“As the result of that assault the victim suffered pain and was heavily bleeding,” Yapu said.

“She was rescued and was taken to Lorengau General Hospital for medical treatment.”

The man was arrested and faced court yesterday where his case was adjourned.

He remains in police custody and has not been returned to the detention centre.

Relatives of the woman involved said she had met the man at the Lorengau market before being taken to the hotel.

The woman’s aunt said she had discovered her niece’s injuries when the woman returned home several hours later.

“I was shocked when I saw this,” she said. “I took her straight to the hospital because she was in a state of shock.”

Police said they had intervened to stop the woman’s relatives from retaliating against the accused.

But the woman’s aunt said the family remained angry.

“This is a horrific crime,” she said. “If that fellow was a local person he would get chopped to pieces.”

The incident comes amid increasing tension between the asylum seekers and refugees on the island and local people.

The detainees have been free to visit Lorengau since April 2016, when the PNG Supreme Court ruled their detention at the nearby naval base was illegal.

Since then, there have been violent attacks on asylum seekers and refugees outside the centre, including the bashing of two Iranian men by police.

But police and local representatives accused the detainees of committing crimes and aggressively pursuing local women.

Police on the island said at least seven men had been arrested in recent weeks for offences such as public drunkenness and possession of drugs.

The woman’s aunt said the alleged rape showed there was a serious problem in how the detainees were relating to local people.

“They don’t know our cultures and they don’t respect the women here, they do anything they want,” she said.

“They are roaming here, looking for women and getting these young women to have sex is not something the people of Manus would like to see.” - ABC