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Rabaul is a town on the island of New Britain in the country of Papua New Guinea. Due to how the town is situated on a protected harbor, it became a strategic location in the Pacific Front during WWII. Nowadays, the town is an isolated center for tourism, including the nearby active volcano Tavurvur.
For more maps about airlines/airports see DCA Perimeter Restrictions and Israel/India Flight Paths; and for more posts about Papua New Guinea see this post about the LNG pipelines!
See the interactive Google Map at the bottom of the post!
Three key facts about this map
The old town of Rabaul was destroyed by a volcanic explosion
In 1994, the nearby volcano Tavurvur erupted, coating the entire town in ash – due to the rain of ash after the eruption, 80% of the buildings in Rabaul collapsed. On Google Maps, you can still see remnants of the airport runway and streets of the destroyed city. Rabaul rebuilt closeby to the destroyed city, just on the other side of the protected Karavia Bay.
Below is a Youtube video of a recent eruption of the same volcano – Tavurvur.
Very few people perished in the 1994 explosion
Out of 50,000+ people at risk, only 5 people perished due to the 1994 Tavurvur explosion – four from roofs collapsing due to fallen ash and one from lightning caused by the eruption clouds. The reason so few people died is that citizens of the city had been preparing for an explosion and listened to the signs to evacuate in danger – because of this, the response to the 1994 Tavurvur explosion was seen as a major success in evacuation preparation.
The Rabaul airport was forced to relocate
The Rabaul Airport similar to the town was forced to close due to its proximity to the volcano. The airport could not reopen in the same location because the flight approach path required planes to pass over the Tavurvur Volcano crater, which is still active to this day. A new airport 50km away was opened as a replacement.
Additional links and sources
- Article about the Tavurvur explosion in Rabaul (link, published in 2011)
Have you ever heard of the PNG town of Rabaul?
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