A powerful earthquake struck near Indonesia’s Sumatra island on Wednesday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said, and the shock was felt across South-East Asia.
The undersea earthquake, which hit at 11.10 am GMT, struck in the sea about 100km south-west of the city of Bengkulu, at a depth of roughly 15km, the USGS said.
The USGS initially said on its website there was a quake measuring 8,0, and a short time later said there was a quake measuring 7,9 at a slightly different location, leading to initial confusion about the number of quakes.
A tsunami warning was issued, an Indonesian meteorological agency official said.
The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services issued a tsunami alert on Wednesday for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands but said no alert had been issued for the mainland yet. Malaysian authorities issued a warning to coastal residents to stay away from beaches and Sri Lanka also issued a tsunami warning.
Bengkulu province in Sumatra bore the brunt of the shaking, CNN reported.
Several buildings in Padang, the provincial capital of Indonesia’s West Sumatra, collapsed, Global TV reported.
Some offices in Jakarta were evacuated. Witnesses in Singapore and Thailand said they also felt the tremors.
”After praying I felt the earthquake. I panicked, threw away my shoes and ran through the emergency exit,” said Widyastuti, a 23-year-old IT worker in Jakarta who was in one of Bank Indonesia’s offices in central Jakarta.
Indonesia, located the Pacific Basin’s ”Ring of Fire” — an arc of volcanoes and fault lines — is prone to earthquakes. In December 2004, a massive quake off Sumatra triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230 000 people in multiple countries, including 160 000 people in the Indonesian province of Aceh.