UPDATE 1 -- Strong earthquake strikes western Indonesia, no word on casualties

[News_Editor]

UPDATE 1 -- Strong earthquake strikes western Indonesia, no word on casualties

2011-09-06 01:59:18 GMT+7 (ICT)

JAKARTA (BNO NEWS) -- A strong earthquake struck Northern Sumatra in western Indonesia on early Tuesday morning, seismologists said, but there was no immediate word about damage or casualties. No tsunami alert was issued.

The 6.7-magnitude earthquake at 12.55 a.m. local time (1755 GMT Monday) was centered on land about 100 kilometers (62 miles) southwest of Medan, the country's fourth largest city which serves as the capital of North Sumatra province. It struck about 78 kilometers (48 miles) deep, making it a shallow earthquake, according to Indonesia's seismological agency (BMKG).

The United States Geological Survey (USGS), which measured the strength of the earthquake at 6.6 on the Richter scale, estimated that some 400,000 people may have felt strong shaking near the epicenter. Some 16.6 million others may have felt light to moderate shaking, the USGS said.

It was not immediately known if the earthquake caused damage or if there were casualties.

Ronald Kamto, who lives in Medan, said he was working on his blog when he felt the earthquake. "It was slow at the first 15 seconds, so I thought it was a small one and didn't bother to get out of the house," he said. "Then the quake increased."

Kamto said the earthquake lasted for about a minute. "I was getting ready to grab my stuff and run out of the house when the quake decreased," he said. Kamto said he had heard no reports about damage or casualties in the city.

Neither BMKG nor the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning. "A destructive tsunami was not generated based on earthquake and historical tsunami data," the tsunami warning center said in a bulletin. "This earthquake is located too far inland to generate a tsunami in the Indian Ocean."

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 the region. 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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