Strong Quake Strikes Eastern Indonesia
Pastor Dale Morgan
Strong Quake Strikes Eastern Indonesia*
The Associated Press
Friday, August 17, 2007; 12:35 AM
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- A strong undersea earthquake struck eastern
Indonesia on Friday, the U.S. Geological Survey and local officials
said. No tsunami warning was issued and there were no immediate reports
of damage.
The temblor had a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 and hit 145 miles
southeast of Ambon, the capital of Maluku province, said Suhardjono, an
official at Indonesia's Meteorological and Geophysics Agency who goes by
only one name.
The USGS said the quake struck six miles beneath the Banda Sea, but
local officials put the depth at around 40 miles. The reason for the
discrepancy was not clear.
"We have not received any reports of damage," Suhardjono said, adding
that the agency did not issue a tsunami warning because the quake was
not strong enough to trigger waves.
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.
In December 2004, a massive earthquake struck off Sumatra island and
triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen
countries, including 160,000 people in Indonesia's westernmost province
of Aceh alone. A tsunami off Java island last year killed at least 600.