A major magnitude 7.3 earthquake was recorded off the Moluccas in Indonesia yesterday, the National Disaster Management Agency said, causing residents near the quake to flee their homes after a tsunami warning was issued.
The earthquake was felt strongly on the Sitaro Islands, where authorities warned people to stay away from beaches and riverbanks, agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a statement.
There were no reports of casualties or major damage, while MetroTV reported power cuts in some parts of Manado, the capital of North Sulawesi Province.
“It was strong,” said Regina Saerang, an eyewitness in Manado. “I felt it for about a minute. There was no damage, but people on my street were pouring out of their houses.”
The head of the agency has ordered the preparation of aircraft and logistics in case they are needed and further checks of the affected areas were being made, Nugroho said.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii said hazardous tsunamis were possible within 300km of the quake’s epicenter, although there was no danger of a Pacific-wide tsunami.
It also warned that tsunamis could be expected to reach Indonesia, the Philippines, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and the Marshall Islands, and even as far away as Taiwan and Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture. The first waves could reach land within 30 minutes and the last within about six hours.
However, Malaysian, Thai and Sri Lankan disaster agencies all said they would not be impacted by the quake, but would continue to monitor the situation.
Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology head Renato Solidum told reporters that there was no tsunami threat in the Philippines. The institute had earlier warned small tsunami waves were possible in southern Mindanao island.
The quake was measured at a depth of 47km, with the epicenter 134km northwest of Ternate, an island in eastern Indonesia’s Moluccas.
Another quake measuring 6.2 was recorded soon after off Indonesia’s Sulawesi, according to the US Geological Survey.
Indonesia is inside the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire,” a seismically active zone where different plates of the earth’s crust meet and create a large number of earthquakes and volcanoes.
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