Indonesia issues tsunami warning after more eruption from Mount Ruang
The heightened alert was issued late on Wednesday after the 725-meter-high volcano had two large eruptions earlier in the day, spewing a column of ash 3,000 metres into the sky.
An earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale rocked Indonesia’s Central Sulawesi island just a few hours after a magnitude 6.0 quake killed one and left around 10 injured in Donggala region of island.
Located approximately 1000 kms to the east as the crow flies from the capital city of Jakarta, the Central Sulawesi was rocked at 5:02 pm Jakarta time, only a few hours after the first earthquake.
According to US Geological Survey, the hypocentre of the 6.0 tremor was at a depth of 18 km and the epicentre at a point 30.5 km north of the city of Donggala.
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According to The Jakarta Post, National and Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a release that the second quake hit the area about 2 kilometers north of Donggala, at a depth of 10 km.
The earthquake was larger in magnitude than the 2006 Yogyakarta earthquake, which measured 6.4 in magnitude, and the recent 7.0-magnitude Lombok earthquake in August.
The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) had issued but quickly revoked a tsunami warning.
Four earthquakes between 29 July and 19 August had killed at least 557 people died and left 400,000 displaced on the Lombok island. The quakes varied between magnitude 6.3 and 6.9.
Indonesia’s deadliest ever tremor struck Sumatra island in 2004 and triggered a tsunami that killed nearly 280,000 people in around a dozen countries along the Indian Ocean, with the biggest number of casualties registered in Indonesia.
Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of great seismic and volcanic activities, where some 7,000 earthquakes, mostly moderate, are recorded each year.
(With inputs from agencies.)
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