One killed, dozens of buildings damaged in strong earthquake in Maluku Province, Indonesia
One person died and dozens of buildings were damaged in the latest powerful earthquake in Maluku province in Indonesia, local disaster agency said on Saturday.
“One old person died during the quake,” Abdul Jabarraharusun, head of emergency unit of disaster management agency in Maluku, told Xinhua by phone on Saturday. A total of 40 houses and scores of buildings including a shopping mall, an airport, school buildings and government office buildings, were devastated by the 6.2 magnitude quake earlier this week. The quake also forced dozens of people to flee home and take shelters on safer grounds, the official said.
The assessment of the earthquake’s impact is undertaken by the officials of the disaster management agency, according to Jabarraharusun.
Weak aftershocks kept hitting the areas until Saturday, Andri Sembiring, an official of Indonesia’s meteorology and geophysics agency told Xinhua by phone on Saturday.
The main shock’s epicentre was located at 38kilometres southwest of Ambon, the capital city of Maluku province, and its depth was 10km under the sea bed, the meteorology agency said. However, this earthquake was not strong enough to cause a tsunami, it added. Indonesia is prone to earthquakes as it sits in a vulnerable quake-hit zone called “the Pacific Ring of Fire.”