Two strong quakes hit Indonesia – USGS

Two strong earthquakes struck Indonesia hours apart on late Saturday and early Sunday. The red dot shows the epicenter of the first quake and the yellow star marks the second. USGS IMAGE

WASHINGTON, United States – Two strong quakes struck the Indonesian archipelago late Saturday and early Sunday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.

A shallow 6.4-magnitude quake struck the island of Lombok at 6:47 a.m. (local time), the USGS said.

There were no immediate reports of damage after the powerful quake, whose epicenter was at a depth of seven kilometers, according to the agency.

Hours earlier, a deep 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck off eastern Indonesia on Saturday, the USGS also reported.

There was no tsunami warning.

The strong quake was centered about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north-northeast of Maumere town on the island of Flores, the USGS said, at a depth of 360 miles.

Indonesia, an archipelago of thousands of islands, sits on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, a seismic activity hotspot.

It is frequently hit by quakes, most of them harmless. However, the archipelago remains acutely alert to tremors that might trigger tsunamis.

In 2004 a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 9.3 undersea earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, in western Indonesia, killed 220,000 people in countries around the Indian Ocean, including 168,000 in Indonesia. /cbb

Agence France-Presse