Earthquake struck Indonesian island
INDONESIA: On Thursday a 6.0-magnitude earthquake hits the Indonesian island of Bali, causing panic in tourist areas as people fled buildings that cracked as they shook violently in the tremor.
The quake’s epicentre was in the ocean south of Bali’s capital Denpasar, said the US Geological Survey ( USGS) but the Hawaii-based PacificTsunami Warning Center said there was no current tsunami warning in effect.
Endro Tjahjono from the Bali office of Indonesia’s Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said strong shaking was felt for several minutes in the main tourist district of Kuta.
He said, “There was panic everyone ran out of the buildings. When we returned to our office building, we saw some cracks on the wall and plaster had come off the walls.”
The epicentre was measured at 61.3 kilometres (38.1 miles) deep, some 130 kilometres south-southwest of Bali’s capital Denpasar, said the US seismologists, who measured the magnitude at 6.0.
Indonesia’s Meteorology and Geophysics Agency measured the undersea quake at 6.8 magnitude and put the quake’s depth at just 10 kilometres, but said it was unlikely to cause a tsunami.
There were no reports of injuries but several hospital buildings suffered light damage, Indonesian National Disaster Management Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a text message.
The quake was also felt in neighbouring areas such as Surabaya, Blitar and Malang cities in east Java.
