January 23, 2005

Update on Sulawesi quake

From Reuters bq. Strong Earthquake Shakes Indonesia's Sulawesi A large earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale shook Indonesia's eastern Sulawesi island early on Monday, damaging buildings and panicking residents, officials and local media reports said. The temblor comes a month after a massive quake off Aceh province in western Sumatra island that sent a tsunami hurtling across the Indian Ocean, killing more than 234,000 people, most of them in Indonesia. bq. A large quake was also felt in the Aceh provincial capital, Banda Aceh, on Monday morning, rattling buildings and sending residents into the streets. bq. There were no immediate reports of casualties as a result of the Sulawesi quake which hit at 3:10 a.m. (1510 EST Sunday), the meteorological and geophysics agency said. bq. Police went around the streets calming residents, many of whom feared a tsunami could be headed toward the Sulawesi coast, local radio stations reported. bq. "At least eight houses are damaged, but there is no report of casualties yet," meteorological and geophysics agency official Sutiono told Reuters. bq. The damaged homes were in Palu, a town about 16 km (10 miles) from the epicenter. bq. The earthquake was followed by at least two aftershocks and the airport at Palu, which is 970 miles northeast of Jakarta, had been closed, media reported. (Reporting by Achmad Sukarsono, Harry Suhartono and Dan Eaton in Jakarta and Dean Yates in Banda Aceh) No word yet if it is related to the earlier Aceh quake or from a different fault-line. Posted by DaveH at January 23, 2005 6:11 PM