Manado, Indonesia: A powerful earthquake in northeastern Indonesia triggered a tsunami warning on Tuesday, causing panicked residents to flee shaking buildings on islands in the Maluku Sea, officials and media reports said.
The 6.5-magnitude temblor struck 210 kilometres from Ternate, the capital of Maluku island, and 375 km from Manado, the northernmost city on Sulawesi island, the US Geological Survey said.
"We have called local authorities in Ternate and coastal areas to warn them of a potential tsunami," said Fauzi, a seismologist who goes by only one name.
It was not immediately clear if the temblor, which hit at 5:04 pm (1304 IST) and was centred at a depth of around 30 km, caused injuries or damage.
Frightened residents fled their homes and at least one hotel in Ternate was evacuated, El Shinta radio reported. Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’, an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
In December 2004, a massive earthquake struck off Indonesia's Sumatra island and triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 lives—131,000 people in Indoneia's Aceh provice alone. A tsunami off Java island last year killed nearly 5,000.
Today's tremor came less than a month after a magnitude-7.3 earthquake hit in roughly the same spot, killing at least three people.
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