Jakarta:Indonesia cancelled the tsunami warning it issued after a 6.6-magnitude earthquake struck parts of the western tip of Java and southern Sumatra province of Lampung Tuesday morning.

"The tsunami warning had been cancelled 40 minutes later, after no tidal wave took place following the quake," said Taufik, the head of Indonesia's National Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG).

According to the BMG, the quake's epicentre was in the Indian Ocean, about 125-km northwest of Ujungkulon in the southwestern tip of Java, about 630 km southwest of Jakarta. It occurred at 10:07 a.m., about 20 kilometres beneath the seabed.

Taufik added that there were no immediate reports of injury or structural damage from the quake, the latest in a series to rattle the country in recent days.

But the agency was closely monitoring nearby coastal areas for possible structural damage or injury from the quake.

The quake triggered panic among thousands of people occupying high-rise buildings in the capital Jakarta, many of whom ran out of their offices, detik.com online news portal reported.

Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", the edge of a tectonic plate prone to seismic upheaval. A major earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck on Dec 26, 2004, leaving more than 170,000 people dead or missing in Indonesia's Aceh province and left half a million homeless.

 

 

Source : IANS