5.3 earthquake just rattled the Bismarck Sea coast near Lae, Papua New Guinea

"A magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck beneath the Bismarck Sea near Lae, Papua New Guinea,

at a depth of 103 kilometers, registering as the strongest seismic event under that stretch of seafloor in the preceding 24 hours. The quake occurred along one of the most tectonically active subduction zones on Earth, where the Solomon Sea Plate dives beneath the South Bismarck Plate. For coastal communities near Lae, a city of roughly 100,000 people and Papua New Guinea’s second-largest urban center, intermediate-depth earthquakes like this one raise recurring questions about infrastructure resilience and monitoring capacity in a region that experiences frequent shaking." msn