Aug 8, 3:22 PM EDT
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New, Powerful Earthquake Hits Indonesia*

By ROBIN McDOWELL
Associated Press Writer

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- A powerful earthquake under the Java Sea
rattled Indonesia's capital early Thursday, violently shaking tall
buildings and sending panicked residents into the streets.

There were no immediate reports of damage, and geophysicists said there
was little risk of a tsunami.

The quake, which struck at 12:04 a.m. (1:04 p.m. EDT Wednesday) had a
preliminary magnitude of 7.5 and was centered about 65 miles east of
Jakarta at a depth in the Earth of 180 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey
said.

Residents said tall buildings and single story homes shook violently in
the city of 9 million people, and water sloshed from swimming pools.

Many people were awakened by the quake and some people screamed "Allah
akbar!" or "God is great!" as they ran outside.

El-Shinta radio reported that the quake could be felt from Sumatra
island in the west to Bali to the east, but that there were no immediate
reports of damage.

The quake also was felt in parts of Malaysia, said Don Blakeman, a
geophysicist at the USGS National Earthquake Information Center in
Golden, Colo.

None of the instruments closest to the earthquake indicated that a
tsunami was triggered, said Robert Cessaro, a geophysicist at the
Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii. He added that there were no
instruments "very close" to the quake's epicenter.

"Because this earthquake was so far below the ocean bottom, it didn't
trigger a tsunami or cause a lot of damage," said John Bellini, another
USGS geophysicist.

The Dec. 26, 2004, earthquake that triggered the tsunami off the coast
of Sumatra and killed more than 131,000 in Indonesia's Ache province was
only 18 miles deep, according to the USGS.

"The earthquake center in 2004 was close enough that it actually
ruptured the surface of the sea floor, which caused a tsunami," Bellini
said. "This one was felt by people on the ground, and it shook
buildings, but it was too deep to cause the ocean bottom to move."

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.

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Associated Press writers Chris Hawke in Bangkok, Thailand, and Sarah
DiLorenzo and Lily Hindy contributed to this story from New York.