Posted on 04/10/2005 8:25:49 AM PDT by COUNTrecount
PADANG, Indonesia (Reuters) - An earthquake of magnitude 6.8 has rattled parts of Indonesia,sending people in this city on Sumatra island rushing out of their homes and heading toward highground in fear of a possible tsunami.
An official said on Sunday there were reports of houses flattened elsewhere on Sumatra, butas of three hours after the quake hit there were no reports of any casualties.
Jakarta-based meteorological analyst Wijayanto also told Reuters "there are no tsunamireports, so residents can return home, but they must still be careful of aftershocks".
Indonesia has experienced a series of quakes and aftershocks since a massive temblor onDecember 26 triggered a tsunami across the Indian Ocean that killed more than 180,000 people.Nearly 50,000 more are still unaccounted for from that disaster.
Another quake off Sumatra on March 28 is estimated to have killed up to 2,000. Full detailson casualties are often slow in Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 17,000 islands wherecommunications infrastructure is sometimes minimal and transportation primitive.
According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, no tsunami warning hasbeen issued as a result of Sunday's quake, but it also said there are no tsunami detectiondevices in the immediate area of the quake.
The latest quake was felt in Indonesia's neighbour Singapore as well.
A Reuters reporter in Padang, a city of some 800,000 on Sumatra's west coast, saw manyfrightened people leave their houses and seek higher ground.
"There are reports of damage in Pariaman and Lubuk Basung," Wijayanto said, referring toother communities.
"Some houses are flattened."
He said there were major problems with telephone communication into the affected areas, butelectricity had been restored in Padang after an interruption of about an hour.
The United States Geological Survey said on its Web site http://earthquake.usgs.gov that thequake, which struck at 1729 local time (11:29 a.m. British time) was "strong".
It said aftershocks of 5.8 and 6.3 magnitude occurred in the same region at 11:45 a.m.British time and 11:14 a.m. British time, respectively.
Wijayanto said the quake epicentre was in the ocean 65 miles southwest of Padang at a depthof 30 km.
"It's part of the chain of previous quakes. It's not an aftershock," Fauzi, another officialwith the national meteorological bureau in Jakarta, told Reuters.
Singapore's Channel News Asia said residents of high-rise apartments in the city statereported feeling their buildings swaying.
these people couldn't buy a break if it was free.
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