Powerful Earthquake Hits Eastern Indonesia

Indonesia Issues Tsunami Warning After Quake

A powerful earthquake rocked eastern Indonesia today, sending residents fleeing from swaying homes and hospitals, authorities and witnesses said.

There were no immediate reports of damage as a result of the quake, which measured 6.7 on the Richter scale and struck under the Molucca Sea at a depth of 33km (20 miles), the US geological survey said on its website.

The quake's epicenter was 220km north of Ternate city.

Indonesia's geological agency and the Pacific tsunami warning center issued tsunami warnings and national TV stations broke into their programming to relay the alerts, but the warnings were quickly lifted.

"We felt a strong tremor for almost a minute, people ran in panic from buildings, said George Rajaloa, a resident in Ternate. "Children are crying and their mothers are screaming, but there is no damage in my area."

Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", the edge of a tectonic plate prone to seismic upheaval. A major earthquake and subsequent tsunami on December 26 2004 killed more than 131,000 people in Indonesia's Aceh province and left half a million homeless.

Just over a year ago, another earthquake and subsequent tsunami killed around 600 people on Java island.