The Jakarta Post, 3/13/2007 5:54:49 PM
Three earthquakes rattle eastern Indonesia, no report of damage
JAKARTA (JP): Meteorology and Geophysics (BMG) Tuesday reported three
earthquakes measuring between 5.3 to 5.6 at the Richter Scale in different places in
eastern Indonesia.
There is no immediate report of casualty or property damage.
The first quake occurred at 8.03 a.m. western Indonesian time measuring 5.3 at the
Richter Scale with epicenter some 199 kilometers from North Maluku's city of Ternate.
A similar scale quake occurred at 12.50 p.m. western Indonesian time with epicenter
at the sea some 396 kilometers east of Bitung sea.
Meanwhile, the 5.6 magnitude quake occurred at 4.05 p.m., which was centered in
the land some 55 kilometers from Sumbawa sea.
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval due to its
location on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines
encircling the Pacific Basin.
In December 2004, a massive earthquake off Indonesia's Sumatra island triggered a
tsunami that battered much of the Indian Ocean coastline and killed more than
230,000 people - 131,000 of themin Indonesia's Aceh province alone.
A tsunami off Java island last year killed nearly 5,000. (**)
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