JAKARTA, Jan 10 (NNN-ANTARA) – Several houses and buildings were destroyed, after a 7.5 magnitude earthquake rocked Indonesia’s eastern province of Maluku earlier today, officials and weather agency said.
The country’s meteorology, climatology and geophysics agency, reported the quake at 7.9 magnitude, before revising it to 7.5, head of the Quake and Tsunami Mitigation Division of the agency, Daryono, said.
Several houses and buildings were impacted by the earthquake, some of them cracked and some others collapsed, Doni B. Layan, head of operational unit of the disaster management and mitigation agency in Kepulauan Tanimbar district, the hardest hit area, said via the phone.
The official said that, an assessment would be conducted to find out precisely the impact of the tremors.
So far, he said, there were no preliminary reports of residents injured.
The official said that, over 2,000 people in the district had escaped coastal areas, after the quake.
“We have carried out several times, of drills over an anticipation of tsunami. So when the quake happened, the residents rushed to leave the coastal areas and headed to higher grounds,” said Layan.
Previously, Eva M.F. Tuhumury, a senior official of the disaster management agency in the province said, residents in the Maluku Barat Daya district, had fled the coastal areas for safety.
The tremors of the quake were also felt in several nearby provinces, according to the agency.
The quake occurred at 00:47 a.m. (1747 GMT), with its epicentre located 148 km north-west of Maluku Tenggara Barat (Kepulauan Tanimbar), and a depth of 131 km under the seabed.
Three aftershocks, from weak to moderate, followed the main shock, according to Daryono.
The agency had issued a tsunami alert to the province and the nearby province of South-east Sulawesi, but the tsunami did not occur.– NNN-ANTARA
