A strong earthquake rocked Indonesia’s famous tourist island of Bali on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring at least two others, officials said.
An official at Jakarta’s national earthquake centre said the earthquake, measuring 5,5 on the Richter scale, jolted Bali, 975km east of Jakarta, at about 4.35pm local time (8.35am GMT).
The quake’s epicentre was about 7km from Denpasar, the island’s capital. It occurred about 80km beneath the sea bed.
”People rushed out of their homes, they panicked. The quake was very strong and lasted a long time,” said Budi Sunarso, of Bali’s geophysics agency.
Sunarso confirmed that one person had died in the quake and two others sustained serious injuries. He said there had been no reports of any serious damage.
Reports by Elshinta radio said that a man fell off a roof when the quake struck. More than one million foreign tourists visited Bali last year, the majority vacationing on beaches along the southern coast near Denpasar. — Sapa-DPA