In the western region there are grassy flood plains. PNG is in the Pacific Volcano belt . Apart from Mount Lamington in Oro Province which last errupted in 1951, most live Volcanoes are on New Britain. In September 1994 Rabaul was destroyed, fortunately without much loss of life, by two weeks' continuous erruption by volcanoes both sides of its harbour. The once famous WWII reck dive sites within the harbour now have a heavy coating of ash.
Earthquakes are more common.
In July 1998, an off-shore earthquake caused a tsunami , or harbour wave which devastated part of the northern Sepik Province. It is believed that PNG and then Australia were colonised by way of the Indonesian Archipelago more than 50,000 years ago, a migration perhaps made easier by falling sea levels due to the Ice Age. Papua New Guinea was first 'discovered' by the Portugese in 1512. The first landing was made by the portugese Jorge de Meneses, who named it Ilhas dos Papuas . The British East India Company arrived in PNG in 1793 and examined parts of western New Guinea but in 1824 the Dutch and British agreed that the Netherlands' hold over the western half should stand.