An undersea earthquake registering 6.0 on
the Richter scale struck Sunday morning off East Timor, but there were no
reports of injury or damage, Indonesian seismological officials said.
The quake struck at 7 am Sunday Jakarta time (0000 GMT), about 159 kilometres south-east of Dili, the capital of East Timor, according to the National Meteorology
and Geophysics Agency.
The event was centred only 10 kilometres beneath the seabed but did not trigger a tsunami, the agency said.
The tiny country of East Timor, a former Indonesian province for nearly 25
years, gained independence in 2002.
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago nation, sits atop the Pacific
Ocean's Ring of Fire, where the meeting of continental plates causes high
volcanic and seismic activity.
A 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck Thursday in the eastern Indonesian islands of
Maluku province, after a 7.6-magnitude quake struck islands on North Maluku
earlier Thursday. The two quakes caused no injuries or damage.
A major 9.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck
in December 2004, leaving more than 170,000 people dead or missing in Indonesia's Aceh province and half a million people homeless, dpa
reported.
...