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Powerful earthquake hits eastern Indonesia

A powerful earthquake rocked eastern Indonesia yesterday, sending people fleeing into the streets from swaying homes, offices and hospitals, authorities and witnesses said.

There were no immediate reports of damage.

The quake, which had a preliminary magnitude of 7.0, triggered a tsunami warning but the alert was quickly lifted after it became clear no destructive waves had been generated, the country's geophysics agency said.

In the city of Manado, people fled from markets, hospitals and schools, witnesses said.

One woman ran from the second floor of a hospital with an IV drip still inserted in her arm, a reported said.

"What's going on? What's going on?" she screamed before being calmed by other people.

The quake struck under the Maluku Sea at a depth of 33km, the US geological survey said on its Web site.

Its epicenter was more than 200km north of Ternate island.

"We felt a strong tremor for almost a minute, people ran in panic from buildings," said George Rajaloa, a resident in Ternate city. "Children are crying and their mothers are screaming, but there is no damage in my area."

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 volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

A massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami on Dec. 26, 2004, killed more than 131,000 people in Indonesia's Aceh Province and left half a million homeless. Just over a year ago, another quake-generated tsunami killed as many as 600 people on Java.
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