JAKARTA - A strong earthquake struck in the Banda Sea in eastern Indonesia early on Saturday, but there were no reports of casualties or major damage, and local fears of a tsunami proved unfounded.
A tsunami caused by an Indian ocean quake in December 2004 devastated Indonesia's Aceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra, leaving some 170,000 people dead or missing.
Saturday's quake struck on the other side of the country at 1.58 a.m. local time (1658 GMT Friday) with a strong magnitude of 7.7, but at a depth of 212 miles (342 km) which blunted its impact on the earth's surface.
"Although it was quite strong, it was deep, so the possibility of casualties and damage is relatively small," Yusuf, an official at the national earthquake centre in Jakarta, told Reuters on Saturday.
Beni Sipolo, chief of the earthquake centre in Ambon, a provincial capital on the coast of the Banda Sea 2,300 km (1,440 miles) east of Jakarta, told El Shinta news radio:
"People were panicking because there was a rumour that a tsunami would come up. But this was not true. So we were able to calm the people down."
He said there had been no reports of damage or casualties, although an Indonesian television station said walls of some buildings had been wrecked.
"It shook my house and woke me up," Ambon resident Renna Tetelay told Reuters by phone. She said the shaking lasted about a minute.
Earthquakes are frequent in Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country. Its 17,000 islands sprawl along a belt of intense volcanic and seismic activity, part of what is called the Pacific Ring of Fire.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
