After a powerful quake hit Indonesia, the tsunami warning was altered to all the locals. The initial reports on Monday stated that there was no major damage in Indonesia after a 6.9 magnitude earthquake hit the northeastern coast of the island of Sulawesi, but now the authorities have lifted a tsunami warning.
The earthquake struck on late Sunday out at sea at a depth of 36km with numerous smaller aftershocks, as per to the geophysics agency Meteorological, Geophysical and Climatological Agency (BMKG).
Quakes shook buildings, alarming inhabitants of several cities, as well as authorities urged people to shift to the higher ground.
The BMKG said in a recent statement, “The tsunami early warning has ended,”
Yusuf Latif, who is a spokesman for the search and rescue agency, told the news agency that, “the quake was felt quite strong and with an intensity that lasted quite long,”
“There were no reports of damage or casualties in Ternate,” he further added, referring to the city adjoining to the epicenter.
In the previous report of the US Geological Survey, it has said that the earthquake was centered 185km southeast of Manado at a depth of 24km.
The quake was so strong that it caused panic in the city of especially in Ternate which is located in the Maluku islands chain, where people out of fear ran to higher ground.
As per to the local media reports, some hospitals in Ternate, which is around 130km from the epicenter, suffered minor damages but they had to evacuate patients which they successfully did.
The local residents said in the news reports that very strong tremors were felt for a few seconds in the near seaside resort city of Manado but there was no damage that was reported.
Indonesia due to its location along the Pacific “Ring of Fire” is mostly prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. There are many cases of earthquakes and tsunami in the area but some of them were very disastrous and those are as follows:
A powerful Indian Ocean quake, as well as tsunami in the year 2004, killed a total number of 230,000 people in a lot of various countries, most of them were in Indonesia.
2018 Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami caused major soil liquefaction in the areas as well as around Palu. In two of the locations, this also caused mudflows in which a lot of buildings turn out to be flooded which also leads to hundreds of deaths along with many more missing. The liquefaction was well thought out to be the largest in the world as well as was deemed as rare.
The 2018 Lombok earthquake also caused significant damage and deaths in Indonesia. On 11 October 2018, there was an earthquake that struck off the coast of East Java, Indonesia, with the epicenter traced off the coast of Situbondo Regency. The earthquake at that time struck at dawn, that killed 4 people along with destroying and damaging hundreds of houses, most of which were in the small island of Sapudi. This incident also injured at least 26 people. Most of the victims were not able to escape as the earthquake struck around 2 am and they were asleep. There were about 500 houses that were reported to be damaged by the day next to the earthquake in Sapudi Island alone.
