An undersea magnitude -7.4 earthquake toppled buildings in parts of northern Indonesia, sent people fleeing from their homes, killed at least one person and generated a small tsunami Thursday.
Waves up to 30 inches above normal tides were recorded at several monitoring stations about a half-hour after the earthquake, which was centered in the Molucca Sea. Indonesia’s meteorological agency lifted its tsunami warning hours after the quake, and the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said there was no destructive threat to the country, which is north of the quake’s epicenter.
Strong shaking lasting 10 to 20 seconds was felt in Bitung in North Sulawesi province as well as in Ternate city in neighboring North Maluku province, according to Indonesia’s Disaster Management Agency.
Initial assessments showed light to severe damage in parts of Ternate, including a church and two houses. In Bitung, damage assessments were still underway, the agency said.
Indonesia’s Search and Rescue Agency reported a 70-year-old woman died in a building collapse in North Sulawesi’s Manado city and another resident was injured. At least three injured people were hospitalized in Ternate.
Videos released by the rescue agency showed damaged structures and flattened houses, while television stations broadcast scenes of people rushing outside and gathering in streets to avoid the risk of collapsing buildings.
Nearly 50 aftershocks were felt in nearby areas.
USGS
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu said small waves were possible as well in Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Papua New Guinea, but there was no threat to Hawaii, Guam and other more distant islands.
The quake was strongly felt in Bitung, a coastal city in North Sulawesi province, where residents rushed out of their homes in fear.
“We had just woken up and suddenly the earthquake hit… we all ran out of the house,” resident Marten Mandagi said. “The shaking was very strong,”
Mandagi said he had not seen any damage in his area. “We’re still checking whether there is damage or not. But here we are safe, there are no casualties or destruction,” he said.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago of more than 280 million people, sits on major seismic faults and is frequently hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.
In 2022, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake killed at least 602 people in West Java’s Cianjur city, the deadliest one in Indonesia since a 2018 quake and tsunami in Sulawesi killed more than 4,300 people.
In 2004, an extremely powerful Indian Ocean quake set off a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia’s Aceh province.
