The country's National Disaster Centre said dozens of homes were also affected as emergency crews continued to assess the damage across difficult terrain.
The quake struck at a depth of 62 kilometres (38 miles) near the Chambri Lake system in the sparsely populated region of East Sepik Province, the US Geological Survey said.
"Chambri lake is boiling and the continuous quake is still happening right now," a member of parliament in the area, Johnson Wapunai, said in a message on social media several hours after the quake struck.
The lawmaker urged people to watch out for falling objects or trees, and to be on alert for further seismic activity.
No tsunami warning was issued.
Colles Pinga, who lives not far from the epicentre, told Australia's national broadcaster that three homes in his village were destroyed and people have been injured.
"There's landslides along the riverbanks... it's quite frightening," Pinga told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The quake also left cracks on the interior floors of a new regional hospital that was nearing completion about 60 kilometres away, and also unlodged the building's paving stones, according to photographs taken by a doctor at the scene.
Loosening of soft ground in the quake zone can cause substantial subsidence and horizontal sliding of the ground and result in major damage, the USGS said.
The earthquake shook an area about 100 kilometres east of the border with Indonesia on the island of New Guinea.
The remote New Britain region, part of an archipelago in eastern Papua New Guinea, was struck by a magnitude 6.2 earthquake in late February.
6.1-magnitude quake strikes off Indonesia's Sumatra island: USGS
Jakarta (AFP) April 3, 2023 -
A 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck off Sumatra island in western Indonesia on Monday, shaking homes of panicked residents but causing no casualties or damage.
The quake's epicentre was at sea southwest of Padangsidempuan city in northern Sumatra at a depth of 84 kilometres (52 miles), the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported.
It occurred around 9:59 pm (1459 GMT).
The country's meteorology and geophysics agency said there was no tsunami warning after the tremor but told residents nearest the epicentre to beware of potential aftershocks.
Major Indonesian media outlets carried no immediate reports of damage or injuries but some residents reported their homes shook.
"The earthquake was quite strong and also long. It was not like the usual ones. This time our house shook strongly," said Dody, a resident of North Tapanuli regency in northern Sumatra who like many Indonesians goes by one name.
Indonesia experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", where tectonic plates collide.
On November 21, a 5.6-magnitude quake hit West Java province on Indonesia's main island of Java, killing 602 people.
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