Jakarta Globe, Nov 15, 2014
Jakarta. Indonesian authorities have lifted a tsunami warning after a magnitude-7.1 earthquake hit the east of the country on Saturday morning.
A screenshot of the USGS website showing the series of earthquakes in eastern Indonesia on Saturday. (JG Photo) |
Jakarta. Indonesian authorities have lifted a tsunami warning after a magnitude-7.1 earthquake hit the east of the country on Saturday morning.
The quake
struck at 9:31 a.m. some 156 kilometers northwest of the island of Ternate in
the Malukus. Several aftershocks ranging in magnitude from 4.3 to 5.8 were
registered as of 1:13 p.m., according to the United States Geological Survey.
The initial
quake prompted a tsunami warning from the Meteorology, Climatology and
Geophysics Agency (BMKG), but the waves generated were not as high as feared in
places such as Jailolo and Tobelo, in the Maluku chain, and in Manado, North
Sulawesi.
The BMKG
withdrew its tsunami warning at 13:45 p.m. in the affected area, while the
National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said it would continue to monitor
the seismic activity in the region.
“Any time
there’s a tsunami warning, the people must evacuate to higher ground,” said
Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for the BNPB, adding that in that particular
region, there was only a 30-minute window for an evacuation, given the speed at
which the tsunami waves moved.
The region,
where the Eurasian and Filipino tectonic plates meet, has a history of
earthquakes capable of generating tsunamis. The last recorded tsunami was in
1932, when a quake of magnitude 8.3 struck. Before that, a 7.4 quake in
1858 also generated a tsunami.
No comments:
Post a Comment