Strong earthquake jolts Indonesia's Papua province

Strong earthquake jolts Indonesia's Papua province

2011-06-27 03:57:30 GMT+7 (ICT)

JAKARTA (BNO NEWS) -- A strong earthquake shook the Indonesian province of Papua on late Sunday evening, seismologists said, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

The 6.5-magnitude earthquake at 9.16 p.m. local time (1216 GMT) was centered about 53 kilometers (33 miles) northeast of Waren, a coastal town in the province of Papua which borders Papua New Guinea. It struck about 132 kilometers (82 miles) deep, making it an earthquake of intermediate depth, according to Indonesia's seismological agency (BMKG).

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) measured the strength of the earthquake at 6.4 on the Richter scale and said it struck at a shallow depth of just 20.6 kilometers (12.8 miles). The agency estimated some 98,000 people may have felt moderate to strong shaking, which could potentially result in light to moderate damage.

But there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties from the region, although some residents in the area fled their homes in panic as the earthquake struck. In the following hours, three moderate aftershocks with magnitudes of 5.0, 5.3, and 5.5 rattled the region.

Neither BMKG nor the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami alert following the strong earthquake. "[The earthquake has] no tsunami potential," a brief text message from BMKG said, giving no other details.

Indonesia is on the so-called 'Pacific Ring of Fire', an arc of fault lines circling the Pacific Basin that is prone to frequent and large earthquakes. Volcanic eruptions also occur frequently in the region.

On December 26, 2004, one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded struck off the west coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. The 9.1-magnitude earthquake unleashed a deadly tsunami, striking scores of countries. In all, at least 227,898 people were killed.

Most recently, on October 25, 2010, a powerful 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck just off the Mentawai Islands off the western coast of Sumatra. As a result, a wall of water killed at least 435 people on the islands and impacted more than 20 villages.

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