[Kabar-indonesia] 6.1 Quake Jolts Indonesian Island of Sumbawa

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

6.1 Quake Jolts Indonesian Island of Sumbawa

JAKARTA, August 3 (AFP) -- A 6.1-magnitude earthquake shook the
Indonesian island of Sumbawa Wednesday but caused no immediate
casualties or damage, police and meteorologists said.

The quake struck at 9:45 pm local time (1445 GMT) and was centered
about 300 kilometers (186 miles) southwest of Taliwang town, said
Fitri from the main meteorological agency in Jakarta.

She said the quake, which had an epicentre 33 kilometers under the
sea, was strong enough and shallow enough to cause a tsunami within 45
minutes.

But police on the island speaking around 90 minutes after the quake,
said they had received no reports of a tsunami, nor of any casualties
or damage.

"Until now, no incidents after the quake have been reported to us," a
local policeman called Firman told AFP by telephone.

The 6.3 reading was based on the open-ended Moment Magnitude scale,
now used by US seismologists, which measures the area of the fault
that ruptured and the total energy released.

A massive 7.7-magnitude earthquake earlier this month triggered a
tsunami that lashed the south coast of Indonesia's Java island,
killing more than 600 people.

Indonesia, which sits on the "Pacific Ring of Fire", where continental
plates meet causing frequent seismic and volcanic activity, was the
nation worst hit by the December 2004 Asian tsunami.

Some 168,000 people were killed in Aceh province when a 9.3-magnitude
quake unleashed massive walls of water that reached 11 Indian Ocean
nations, killing a total of 220,000.

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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