A magnitude 6.6-earthquake hit an island off the coast of Sumatra in western Indonesia on Thursday, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), with no immediate reports of damages or tsunami warning.
The quake, which struck Simeulue Island at 11:56 am (0456 GMT) at a depth of 25 kilometres, prompted locals on the island to immediately rush outside.
“I was sitting down at a coffee shop, suddenly the table was shaking. Many people rushed outside of buildings and houses,” Ahmadi, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told AFP.
“The earthquake was quite long. I think probably around seven seconds or more.”
He said there were several aftershocks but the tremors were relatively shorter compared to the earlier quake, adding that he had yet to receive any information about damages.
The Indian Ocean tsunami warning centre said after the quake that “there is no threat” of a potential tsunami generated from the quake.
Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) recorded the quake with a magnitude of 6.3 at a depth of 10 kilometres, adding that the jolt did not have the potential to cause a tsunami.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago in Southeast Asia, experiences frequent earthquakes due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”.
The arc of intense seismic activity, where tectonic plates collide, stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.
A magnitude-6.2 quake that shook Sulawesi island in January 2021 killed more than 100 people and left thousands homeless.
In 2018, a magnitude-7.5 quake and subsequent tsunami in Palu, also on Sulawesi, killed more than 2,200 people.
mrc/jm
© Agence France-Presse
