INDONESIA. Jakarta: Around 200 people were evacuated to higher ground after a 6.1 magnitude earthquake that jolted islands in western Indonesia on Sunday, resulting in some property damage, according to the country’s disaster mitigation agency BNPB.
According to the authorities, the earthquake that struck the Mentawai Islands west of Sumatra occurred at a depth of 27 km (17 miles), and it was followed by an earthquake of 5.3 magnitudes in the same region. A tsunami wasn’t a possibility.
Nurjuli Hashanah, a resident of Mentawai, reported to sources that the earthquake felt strong and rattled her wooden home. She stated that while some of the residents were still in an evacuation shelter, others had returned to their homes.
Sunday also witnessed another earthquake of magnitude 7.6 striking the Eastern New Guinea region in Papua New Guinea, east of the vast Indonesian archipelago. The quake’s aftershocks left significant property damaged and spread panic among residents.
The Indonesian archipelago is located on the highly volatile and tectonic surface, straddling the “Pacific Ring of Fire”. The region often finds itself caught amid tectonic activity where the Earth’s crust meets and creates frequent seismic activity.
In February, a 6.2 magnitude quake killed at least 25 people and wounded over 460 in West Sumatra province. In January 2021, a magnitude of 6.2 killed more than 100 people and injured nearly 6,500 in West Sulawesi province.
In 2002, an enormous earthquake off the coast of Aceh set off a powerful tsunami that killed an estimated 230,000 people in a dozen countries around the world.
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