Earthquakes shake Indonesia and Philippines but no serious damage or tsunami warnings

So far officials had not received any information on damage, but were still assessing the impact in some remote areas

File image: Indonesia and the Phillippines are prone to more earthquakes because they sit on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a seismically active region where different plates of the earth’s crust meetmeet (AP)

A strong earthquake shook the western parts of Indonesia and the Philippines’ main island on Monday morning, sending panic across neighbourhoods, although a tsunami alert was not issued.

The 6.7-magnitude quake was felt in Indonesia’s Sumatra island first, which is situated at the west coast at around 4.06am local time, but did not cause any damage or have the potential to cause a tsunami, the head of Indonesia’s geophysics agency (BMKG) Dwikorita Karnawati said.

It was 16km deep and the tremors were felt strongly in some areas, including the city of Padang by the panicked residents for one minute, according to Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB).

The agency described the quake as feeling like a “truck passing through” in some areas, and said there had been four aftershocks with the biggest of magnitude 6. Padang is about 1,000km northwest of capital Jakarta.

So far officials had not received any information on damage, but were still assessing the impact in some remote areas including North Sumatra’s Nias Selatan, where communications were difficult, an official said.

The quake hit the Philippines at 5.05am local time, with residents in the capital Manila reporting strong tremors leading to shaking of buildings.

But the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology also confirmed that damage was not expected.

“It’s strong and it’s shaking as if it’s dancing sideways,” Lieutenant Aristotle Calayag, acting police chief of the Philippine town of Lubang in Occidental Mindoro, an island off Luzon, was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.

Both Indonesia and the Phillippines are prone to more earthquakes because they sit on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a seismically active region where different plates of the earth’s crust meet.

Last month, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake in the area killed at least 10 people, while a 9.1-magnitude quake also wreaked havoc in 2004, triggering a tsunami that killed 220,000 people throughout the region.