A powerful earthquake in north-eastern Indonesia triggered a tsunami warning on Tuesday and caused panicked residents to flee shaking buildings, officials and media reports said. The tsunami warning was later cancelled.
The United States Geological Survey initially put the temblor’s magnitude at 6,9, but later revised it to 6,5. The quake struck 210km from Ternate, the capital of the Maluku islands, at a depth of 31km.
”We’ve cancelled the tsunami warning, and there have been no reports of damage or injuries from the earthquake,” said Budi Waluyo, a meteorologist at the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency in Jakarta.
The temblor hit at 5.04pm local time. Frightened residents fled their homes and at least one hotel in Ternate was evacuated, El Shinta radio reported.
The Maluku archipelago is located about halfway between Borneo and New Guinea, south of the Philippines. Most of the islands are mountainous, and some have active volcanoes.
Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Pacific ”Ring of Fire”, an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
In December 2004, a massive earthquake struck off Indonesia’s Sumatra island and triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230 000 — 131 000 people in Indonesia’s Aceh province alone. A tsunami off Java island last year killed nearly 5 000.
Tuesday’s tremor came less than a month after a magnitude-7,3 earthquake hit in roughly the same spot, killing at least three people. — Sapa-AP, Sapa-dpa