|
Major quake rocks eastern Indonesia
(AFP)
Updated: 2006-01-28 08:45
A major earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale rocked eastern
Indonesia, the US Geological Survey said.
The quake occurred at 1:58 am (1658 GMT Friday) in the Banda Sea, around 195
kilometers (120 miles) south of Ambon city at a depth of 340 kilometres (220
miles), it said in on its website.
There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii, which monitors seismic events
and their tidal wave-generating potential, put out a bulletin following the
quake, but said no tsunami was expected.
A major earthquake struck in the Banda Sea in
eastern Indonesia on Friday but no immediate threat of a tsunami was
forecast, U.S. agencies said. [Reuters] | "A destructive tsunami is not expected from the earthquake," Stuart
Weinstein, the center's assistant director, told AFP.
"The quake was very deep, its 340 kilometers or roughly 220 miles deep. It's
so far under the surface that it's not going to cause enough displacement of the
sea floor that it'll generate a tsunami," he added.
Indonesia's Aceh province was the hardest hit by the 9.3-magnitude quake off
the coast of Sumatra that triggered tsunamis on December 26, 2004. The waves
killed more than 220,000 people around the Indian Ocean.
An official with the Jakarta meteorological office said it had recorded the
quake at 7.3 on the Richter scale.
It was felt in Ambon and the towns of Tual and Saumlaki, also in the Maluku
island chain, as well as in Sorong in Papua province, Kupang in East Nusa
Tenggara province and the South Sulawesi provincial capital of Makassar, all of
which encircled the epicentre of the quake, he told AFP.
A local policeman in Ambon, who declined to be identified, said the quake was
"felt very strongly in Ambon and caused many people to flee their homes".
"I ran out of the office along with my colleagues," he told AFP, adding that
he was not sure if there were any casualties or damage.
The sprawling Indonesian archipelago sits on the so-called Pacific "Ring of
Fire", where the meeting of continental plates causes high volcanic and seismic
activity.
|
