Jakarta - A series of powerful earthquakes on Sunday morning rattled the eastern Indonesian province of West Papua, collapsing a number of buildings and injuring at least three people, officials said. A tsunami alert was issued by the Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) but was later canceled after no waves appeared.
The quake, which hit at a shallow depth of 10 kilometres, struck at 4:43 am (1943 GMT Saturday), about 135 kilometres north-west of Manokwari, the provincial capital of West Papua, the BMG said.
A series of aftershocks followed the powerful quake, sparking a further panic among residents and deterring them from returning to their homes.
A more powerful aftershock, measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale, with its epicentre on land about 76 kilometres north-west of Manokwari, struck about two hours later but triggered no tsunami, said Fauzi, a BMG official in Jakarta.
Thousands of residents including children and the elderly could be seen thronging the roads of the blacked-out Manokwari town, and they remained outdoors even after the tsunami warning was lifted, local police officials said.
Officials at the BMG office in Manokwari said a number of buildings - including two three-story hotels, the Mutiara and Kalidingin - were collapsed following the second powerful quake.
An official at Manokwari general hospital said three people were injured after jumping out of their room at Swiss-BelHotel in Manokwari and are now undergoing intensive care, detik.com online news portal reported.
In addition, another three people were pulled alive from the rubble at Mutiara Hotel.
A number of damaged buildings and homes were reported in Sorong district town but no reports of casualties.
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," the edge of a tectonic plate prone to seismic upheaval.
A major earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck in December 2004, leaving more than 170,000 people dead or missing in Indonesia's Aceh province and around 500,000 homeless.
