A magnitude 6.7 quake hit off Papua New Guinea's island of New Ireland, the U.S. Geological Survey reported on Tuesday.

A national disaster center official based in Papua New Guinea's capital, Port Moresby, told Reuters by telephone there were no immediate reports of damage.

There were also no immediate warnings of a tsunami from the

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina emphasised joint efforts of the Southeast Asian nations for eradicating poverty through accelerating economic development and facing the challenges stemming from global climate change.

"The trends in disasters, particularly from climate change, are of enormous concern," said John Holmes, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs.

"We can only expect that this kind of trend is going to continue," he told a news conference.

Participants in a seminar on the World Environment Day said signs of climate change had begun to look ominous for Pakistan.

Bhubaneswar: The Naveen Patnaik Government is planning to add tsunamis and earthquakes to the state

Nestle Lanka Limited officially handed over possession to the government of Sri Lanka its completed long term post-tsunami reconstruction projects, on Tuesday. These projects, worth Rs.125 million, spanned affected coastal areas from Negombo to Mullaitivu.

A powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake shook Honduras on Thursday, killing at least five people, knocking down flimsy homes and causing damage in neighboring Guatemala.

The offshore quake destroyed some 60 houses and damaged scores of other buildings across the north of Honduras, a poor country of 7 million people, and briefly triggered a tsunami alert for Central America's Caribbean coast.

More than 5,500 tsunami affected orphaned children still remain in shelters around the country, the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) revealed yesterday adding that it would launch a programme to seek guardians for these children.

Scientists have come up with a scenario that suggests a huge tsunami crashed into the New York City region 2,300 years ago, dumping sediment and shells across Long Island and New Jersey and casting wood debris far up the Hudson river.