Strong quake hits Indonesia's Sumatra, no casualty

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(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-11-23 08:24

JAKARTA - An earthquake with magnitude of 6.7 rocked Bengkulu province of Sumatra Island, Indonesia on Saturday evening, but there were no casualties and no tsunami warning issued, local meteorology agency said.

In Ketahun and Mukomuko towns, the nearest areas to the epicenters and hit the hardest with the intensity of 3 to 4 MMI ( modified mercally intensity), there were no initial reports of damage or casualties, said a military officer in charge at Mukomuko military command at Bengkulu province, who only gave the name Mulyadi.

The National Disaster Management Agency also confirms that there are no initial reports of damage or fatality by the quake.

"So far there was no building collapsed or anyone got killed," Mulyadi told Xinhua by phone from the town.

The shakes of the quake were strongly felt twice, but did not cause panic, he said.

The quake also felt at 2 to 3 MMI in Kepahiang town of the province, said an official of the agency, who gave a single name Hardiatno.

The quake struck at occurred at 23:01 Jakarta time (1601GMT) with epicenter at 142 kilometers southwest of Bengkulu city, the capital of Bengkulu province and 23 kilometers under sea bed, said Hardiatno.

"We do not issue warning for tsunami," he said.

Indonesia has just launched a sophisticated tsunami early warning system on November 11 with faster speed of information dissemination of 5 minutes.

Indonesia, which was devastated by tsunami in 2004 in Aceh and 2006 in West Java with more than 170,000 people dead, is fragile from the threat of tsunami, as the country sits on a vulnerable quake-hit zone, so called "the Pacific Ring of Fire."

At the zone, two continental plates, stretching from the Western Hemisphere through Japan and Southeast Asia, meet, causing frequent volcanic movements.