JAKARTA (Reuters) – A 6. 1-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra island, the third tremor to rattle the area since early Monday, according to the country’s geophysics agency.
Indonesia’s meteorology and geophysics agency (BMKG) recorded the shallow quake off the Mentawai islands, off Sumatra’s western coast just before ten. 30 a. mirielle. and said this did not trigger the tsunami warning.
The agency had earlier recorded a magnitude of 6. 4 but modified that to 6. 1, a BMKG spokesperson said.
Three consecutive earthquakes struck the area along with increasing intensity because the early hours associated with Monday, with a five. 2-magnitude tremor documented before dawn, then a 5. 4-magnitude quake less than an hour or so later.
The particular 6. 1-magnitude earthquake was felt strongly for several seconds by residents in the Mentawai islands, in the provincial capital of Padang, and in the surrounding mountainous area of Bukitinggi, the particular disaster agency stated in a statement.
The agency said there were no reports of casualties but there was minor harm to buildings on Siberut island.
Individually, Novriadi, a local devastation official in the Mentawai islands, told Reuters that residents in a number of villages had been evacuated to higher ground and a local church, school and health service had been slightly broken.
The disaster agency urged the public not to panic and warned of the prospect of aftershocks.
Padang was struck by a 7. 6-magnitude earthquake in 2009 that murdered more than 1, one hundred people, injured a lot more and caused popular destruction.
Indonesia straddles the alleged “Pacific Ring associated with Fire”, where different tectonic plates from the Earth’s crust fulfill and create frequent seismic activity.
(Reporting by Ananda Teresia and Stanley Widianto; Writing by Kate Lamb; Editing simply by Kanupriya Kapoor)