Indonesia has been struck by a strong magnitude 7.5 earthquake, the US Geological Survey said, triggering the national disaster agency to issue a tsunami warning that was later lifted.
The quake hit central Sulawesi island at a shallow depth of about 10km on Sunday, just hours after a smaller quake killed at least one person in the same part of the country.
Indonesia’s disaster agency issued a tsunami warning for the west coast of Sulawesi and east coast of Indonesia’s part of Borneo island, but later lifted the alert.
Television footage showed people running onto the streets. A woman and children wailed in a video distributed by the agency, which also released a photo showing a damaged department store.
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| The disaster agency released a photo showing a heavily damaged department store [BNPB/AFP] |
Officials asked people to remain on the alert as a number of moderate aftershocks hit.
“We advise people to remain in safe areas and stay away from damaged buildings,” Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesperson for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, said in a televised interview.
He also said that the national agency in Jakarta was having difficulties reaching authorities in the affected area.
Nugroho said there was “much damage” in the Donggala area – home to about 300,000 people – where the first quake hit.
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A series of earthquakes in July and August killed nearly 500 people on the holiday island of Lombok, hundreds of kilometres southwest of Sulawesi.
Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire and is regularly hit by earthquakes.
In 2004, an earthquake off the northern Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered a tsunami across the Indian Ocean, killing 226,000 people in 13 countries, including more than 120,000 in Indonesia.
