People fled their houses along the coastline after tsunami warnings were sounded following a strong earthquake in the region. An earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter Scale struck east of Rabaul on Saturday.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center lifted the warning a few hour after the earthquake, however, they suggested that the government monitored the situation closely. “Based on all available data...the tsunami threat from this earthquake has now passed,” they said.

After the earthquake, a tsunami warning was issued for the Pacific region, including Indonesia and the Solomon Islands. People living near the coast in Papua New Guinea left their homes to higher ground after the warning. A Bougainville resident said, “The town residents have vacated the whole place. Those in the villages live higher up, so they are okay, it is just those near the coast.”

The quake was not felt in the capital of Port Moresby and Kavieng in the northern tip of New Ireland island, reported Reuters. The Pacific nation sits in the “Ring of Fire”, where the world’s most active fault lines are located. There are more than 400 underwater volcanoes located along the horseshoe-shaped ring, which extends from New Zealand through Japan to the tip of South America