JAKARTA, Indonesia — A 6.6-magnitude quake hit Indonesian waters early Friday, panicking people and several houses were reported damage but no immediate reports of casualties, officials said.
The quake, which struck at 00:53 a.m. Friday (1553 GMT Thursday), was centered 28 kilometers (17 miles) north of Sorong, a town of Indonesia’s West Papua province, the US Geological Survey said on its Web site. It occurred at a depth of 24 kilometers (15 miles).
Hundreds of people fled their homes in panic in Sorong and Manokwari city, 315 kilometer (195 miles) to the west, and several houses were reported damage, said Karel Roni, the operational chief at Sorong Search and Rescue Agency.
He said there were no immediate reports on casualties, and rescuers were still collecting data on damages.
An official from Indonesia’s Meteorology and Geophysics Agency, Budi Waluyo, said the underwater quake had no potential to generate tsunami waves along nearby coasts.
The world’s largest archipelago, Indonesia is prone to earthquakes due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.
In 2004, a monster temblor off Aceh shores triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries. Most of the deaths were in Aceh.
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