JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia lifted a tsunami alert Tuesday following a magnitude 7.1 undersea earthquake that hit off Mentawai Island, triggering panic in a area liable to deadly quakes however apparently inflicting no main injury or casualties.
The magnitude 7.1 earthquake was centered 170.4 kilometers (105.6 miles) southeast of Teluk Dalam, a coastal city within the South Nias Regency, North Sumatra province, at a depth of 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) below the ocean, the U.S. Geological Survey stated.
The earthquake was adopted by no less than 5 aftershocks measuring magnitude between 5.8 and 4.6, it stated.
After an preliminary tsunami alert, Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Company lifted the warning hours after the quake. The company initially put a preliminary magnitude at 7.3, however later revised it to six.9. Variations in early measurements are widespread.
The company’s head of the Earthquake and Tsunami Heart, Daryono, who goes by a single identify, stated that based mostly on sea-level observations, minor tsunamis of 11 centimeters (4.3 inches) had been detected in Tanah Bala coastal space of South Nias regency.
Residents in components of West Sumatra province, together with the provincial capital of Padang, felt the earthquake strongly for about 30 seconds, inflicting panic, Nationwide Catastrophe Mitigation Company spokesperson Abdul Muhari stated. Some locations ordered evacuations to increased floor.
Indonesia, an unlimited archipelago of 270 million folks, is continuously struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis due to its location on the “Ring of Hearth,” an arc of volcanoes and fault strains that arcs the Pacific.
The final main earthquake was in November final yr, when a magnitude 5.6 killed no less than 340 folks and greater than 7,700 had been injured whereas greater than 62,600 properties had been broken throughout 16 districts in West Java’s Cianjur regency and the encompassing area.
In 2004, an especially highly effective Indian Ocean quake set off a tsunami that killed greater than 230,000 folks in a dozen international locations, most of them in Indonesia’s Aceh province.