A magnitude 7.7 earthquake shook Indonesia’s northwest island of Sumatra early yesterday, prompting a brief tsunami warning and sending panicked residents rushing for higher ground.
There were scattered reports of injuries, but only minor damage in most areas.
The quake struck at 5:15am local time and was centered 205km northwest of the coastal town of Sibolga in Sumatra at a depth of 31km, the US Geological Survey said. It had earlier said the quake measured 7.8.
Indonesia’s Meteorology and Geophysics Agency and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu issued tsunami warnings following the quake, but lifted them two hours later.
A hospital on the island of Simeulue off the coast of Sumatra admitted 17 people for treatment of injuries sustained in the quake, including four in critical condition, said Captain Ajas Siagian, a deputy police chief for the area.
Abdul Karim, a government spokesman in Simeulue, said dozens of houses collapsed or were damaged in Teupah Selatan village. He said no larger buildings were reported damaged, but electricity had been knocked out on the island.
“We are still collecting reports of damages and injuries ... but the situation has returned to normal and people are going back home,” he said.
Local network Metro TV reported a dormitory for nurses partially collapsed in Aceh Province’s district of Singkil and one woman suffered minor injuries in the rush to get out of the building. It said fires sparked by the quake had burned at least 14 houses in Medan, the capital city of North Sumatra Province.
Electricity was cut in Medan, Banda Aceh, the provincial capital of Aceh and other areas.
Paulus Prihandojo, another seismologist with the meteorology agency, said along with the quake’s relative depth, the epicenter was too far away from the major population centers of Medan and Banda Aceh to cause major damage.
He said areas closer to the epicenter were more sparsely populated and many of the buildings in that area were made of wood, which fares better in earthquakes than brick and cement.
At least five strong aftershocks measuring up to 5.2 were recorded, the meteorology agency said.
People in several cities along the southeastern coast of Sumatra as well as Sinabang on Simeulue island and Gunung Sitoli on nearby Nias island poured into the streets and rushed to higher ground after the quake.
“Rumors about a tsunami panicked villagers living near the beach,” said Eddy Effendi, a resident on Nias island. “They ran away on motorbikes and cars or by climbing the hills. There was panic and chaos everywhere, but I don’t see serious damage or injuries in my village.”
Residents in Sibolga said the shaking lasted more than a minute and utility poles in the area were knocked down.
The quake was felt as far away as the outskirts of Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur, about 515km away. There were no reports of damage there.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS