One person was killed and four others injured when a strong earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale shook Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island today.
The quake caused several buildings to collapse in the coastal city of Palu, just 16 kilometres (10 miles) from the epicentre, when it struck shortly before dawn, seismology officials said.
Soon after a succession of smaller aftershocks rattled the city as residents ran for higher ground.
“We were afraid there will be a tsunami,” said a resident of Palu, who reported that thousands of people took to higher ground and many of them refused to return to their homes. While another resident said: “We are scared to go home because there are still aftershocks. What’s more, I heard there will be a tsunami like in Aceh.”
Maudluddin Labalo, the secretary of the regional government in Palu, said attempts were being made to calm people down. “We are using cars equipped with personal address systems to inform people there will not be a tsunami wave,” he said. Labalo said the only damage in the city was to buildings over 30 years old and the infrastructure had not been affected.
Though powerful enough to cause significant damage, a 6.2-magnitude quake is not large enough to create dangerous waves.
Sulawesi was untouched by the December 26 earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale which struck off Sumatra Island, more than 2,500 kilometres away, pushing tsunamis onto shorelines around the Indian Ocean.
But most Indonesians are fearful of a repeat of the disaster that killed 174,000 people in Sumatra and more than 50,000 others across the region.
Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are frequent in Indonesia, an archipelago of almost 18,000 islands strung along the “Pacific Ring of Fire” where continental plates impact under immense pressure.
