A strong earthquake rocked parts of Indonesia’s main island of Java and the tourist island of Bali on Friday, sparking panic, but there were no immediate reports of major damage or injury.
The USGS said the magnitude 7 earthquake struck 96.5 kilometers north of Tuban, a coastal city in East Java province, at a depth of 594 kilometers.
The Indonesian Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics said there was no danger of a tsunami, but warned of possible tremors.
Evacuation orders were issued in some places, resulting in large numbers of people taking to the streets.
The country of more than 270 million people is frequently hit by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis due to its location on a volcanic arc and fault lines in the Pacific Basin, known as the “Ring of Fire”.
In 2004, a very strong earthquake in the Indian Ocean triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in the Indonesian province of Aceh.
Source: AP