A resident in Bougainville's main town of Arawa says a violent earthquake last night had people running to the hills out of fear of a tsunami.
The 7.3 magnitude quake was centred about 75 kilometres southwest of the main town of Arawa, at a depth of about 50 kilometres.
No tsunami warning was issued.
Lawrence Daveona says he had a bookshelf fall over, but Arawa seems to have escaped any significant damage.
But he says that with Bougainville being in the midst of the rainy season, there may have been some major slips in more isolated areas.
"We don't know what it's like in the bush because we've been having our rainy season and we'll have landslides and I don't know whether this earthquake has affected any of that."
Bougainville resident Lawrence Daveona.
