JAKARTA: At least one person has been found dead and hundreds were evacuated from their homes after a major 7.3-magnitude earthquake hit the remote Maluku islands in eastern Indonesia on Sunday, an official said.
The US Geological Survey said the magnitude 7.3 quake was centered 166 km southeast of Ternate, the capital of North Maluku province, at a depth of just 10 km. Shallow quakes tend to cause more damage than deeper ones.
In South Halmahera district, the closest area to the epicenter, around 160 houses collapsed when the shallow earthquake struck. A woman was confirmed dead in the disaster.
Indonesia’s national disaster agency said the land-based earthquake didn’t have any potential to cause a tsunami.
Still, many people ran to higher ground, and TV footage showed people screaming while running out of a shopping mall in Ternate.
Rahmat Triyono, the head of Indonesia’s earthquake and tsunami center, said the quake was followed by several smaller aftershocks. The initial quake and aftershocks were also felt in some parts of North Sulawesi province, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage there.
Ikhsan Subur, a local disaster agency official in Labuha, the town closest to the quake’s epicenter, said several hundred people who were afraid of aftershocks fled to take shelter in government offices and mosques.
He said a police dormitory and several houses of villagers in South Halmahera district, near the epicenter, were damaged.
With a population of around 1 million, North Maluku is one of Indonesia’s least populous provinces.
North Maluku province was also hit by a 6.9-magnitude tremor last week but no extensive damage or casualties were reported.
Indonesia experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where tectonic plates collide.
Last year, a 7.5-magnitude quake and a subsequent tsunami in Palu on Sulawesi island killed more than 2,200 people, with another thousand declared missing.
On December 26, 2004, a devastating 9.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra and triggered a tsunami that killed 220,000 across the Indian Ocean region, including around 170,000 in Indonesia.