The US Geological Survey has detected a 7.6 magnitude earthquake in north-eastern Papua New Guinea.

Renagi Ravu, a geologist in Kainantu, the closest big town to the epicentre and which is located north of the capital Port Moresby, reported buildings shaking for more than a minute as dishes crashed down from shelves.

Mr Ravu said: “It’s a common thing that earthquakes are felt here, but it usually doesn’t last as long and is not as violent as this one.

“It was quite intense.”

Debris lies strewn across a highway following a landslide near the town of Kainantu
The earthquake prompted a landslide near the town of Kainantu in PNG (Renagi Ravu/AP)

The quake hit at 9.46am (00.46am BST) at a depth of 56 miles in a sparsely populated area about 40 miles east of Kainantu.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has advised there is no tsunami threat.

Papua New Guinea, the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, sits on the Pacific’s “Ring of Fire”, the arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean where much of the world’s earthquakes and volcanic activity occurs.