Residents flee Indonesia quake
Pastor Dale Morgan
Residents flee Indonesia quake*
POSTED: 0944 GMT (1744 HKT), February 20, 2007
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- A powerful earthquake in northeastern
Indonesia on Tuesday caused panicked residents to flee shaking buildings
on islands in the Maluku Sea and briefly triggered a tsunami warning,
officials said.
The 6.5-magnitude quake struck 200 kilometers (130 miles) from Ternate,
the capital of Maluku island, and 233 miles from Manado, the
northernmost city on Sulawesi island, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
"We called local authorities in Ternate and coastal areas to warn them
of a potential tsunami," said Fauzi, a seismologist who goes by only one
name, adding that it turned out to be a false alarm.
One hour after the quake struck, there were no signs of seismically
triggered waves.
It was not immediately clear if the quake, which was centered at a depth
of around 20 miles, caused any injuries and damage appeared to be
largely limited to cracks in buildings.
Frightened residents fled their homes and at least one hotel in Ternate
was evacuated.
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 Indonesia's Sumatra
island and triggered a tsunami that killed more than 250,000 people,
including 131,000 people in Indonesia's Aceh province alone. A tsunami
off Java island last year killed nearly 5,000.
Tuesday's quake came less than a month after a magnitude-7.3 earthquake
hit in roughly the same spot, killing at least three people.