Associated Press Posted online: Friday, August 17, 2007 at 1119 hours IST
Jakarta, August 17: A strong undersea earthquake struck eastern Indonesia on Friday, the US Geological Survey and local officials said. No tsunami warning was issued and there were no immediate reports of damage.
The temblor had a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 and hit 230 kilometers (145 miles) southeast of Ambon, the capital of Maluku province, said Suhardjono, an official at Indonesia's Meteorological and Geophysics Agency who goes by
only one name.
The USGS said the quake struck 10 kilometers (6 miles) beneath the Banda Sea, but local officials put the depth at around 60 kilometers (40 miles). The reason for the discrepancy was not clear.
"We have not received any reports of damage," Suhardjono said, adding that the agency did not issue a tsunami warning because the quake was not strong enough to trigger waves.
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 volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
In December 2004, a massive earthquake struck off Sumatra island and triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, including 160,000 people in Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh alone. A tsunami off Java island last year killed at least 600.
