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Strong Earthquake Rocks Eastern Indonesia | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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JAKARTA, Indonesia, AP -A magnitude 5.6 undersea earthquake rocked eastern Indonesian on Sunday, but there were no immediate reports of damages or casualties, Indonesia”s Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said.

The earthquake struck in the morning and was centered beneath the Maluku Sea, about 115 miles east of Manado, a provincial capital on Sulawesi island in northeastern Indonesia, said Lukito, an official at the agency”s Jakarta office.

He said there were no reports of a possible tsunami. The earthquake”s epicenter was 20 miles beneath the Earth”s surface.

A magnitude-9 earthquake and subsequent tsunami on Dec. 26 killed more than 131,000 people in Indonesia”s western Aceh province on Sumatra island and left a half-million homeless. Three months later another strong tremor killed more than 900 on Nias and smaller surrounding islands, also in western Indonesia.

Sunday”s quake jolted Manado and North Maluku”s provincial capital of Ternate, added Lukito, who goes by a single name.

Indonesia, the world”s largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Pacific &#34Ring of Fire,&#34 an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.