Causing between five and eighteen fatalities, it triggered landslides that ran down steep hills into poorly reinforced wooden huts.

Within this overall setting, the active tectonics of northern Papua New Guinea is dominate by the effects of continuing collision between the Huon–Finisterre island arc terrane with the edge of the Australian continental margin.

Felt throughout the entire island of New Guinea, it caused extensive damage in the city of Madang, where it killed three people.

[5] This was due to a dramatic recession of water levels near the epicenter, followed by a rise that at one point measured 3 meters (10 ft).

Landslides caused most of the deaths (which the Catalog of Tsunamis in the Pacific, 1969–1982 lists as 15), which occurred in wooden huts damaged by the shock and crushed by rock.