Tsunami scare as quake rattles Indonesia
A strong earthquake hit the western coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra island today, prompting authorities to temporarily issue a tsunami alert.
The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4, struck nearly 100 miles off the coast of the town of Bengkulu, the Meteorological and Geophysics Agency said.
There was no sign of large waves reaching the coast and authorities lifted the tsunami alert after an hour.
The US Geological Survey put the strength at a weaker 6.2 magnitude.
A series of powerful earthquakes and dozens of aftershocks in the same region killed 23 people and damaged or destroyed thousands of buildings last month.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage from Tuesday’s quake, which registered at a depth of 12.5 miles.
Tsunami alerts are routinely issued in Indonesia, where a monstrous quake in December 2004 spawned the Asian tsunami that killed more the 230,000 people in 11 countries, but a quake of Tuesday’s size rarely causes giant, destructive waves.
Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago, with a population of 235 million people, is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
