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JAKARTA : A massive 8.4-magnitude earthquake struck off the west coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island on Wednesday, toppling buildings and triggering a tsunami alert across the Indian Ocean region.
There was no immediate word on the full extent of casualties and damage, but at least two people were reported killed and dozens injured in the quake, which split open buildings 300 kilometres from the epicentre.
In the capital Jakarta 600 kilometres further south, high-rise towers wobbled, water sloshed from swimming pools and panicked office workers ran into the streets. Elsewhere, power was knocked out and phone lines went dead.
The huge quake - anything over magnitude 7.0 is considered to have the possibility for widespread damage and loss of life - was felt in neighbouring Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, where office buildings swayed and shook.
The US Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said an alert was raised for the entire Indian Ocean area including Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Maldives - all affected by the devastating December 2004 Asian tsunami.
"Sea level readings indicate a tsunami was generated. It may have been destructive along coasts near the earthquake epicentre," the Hawaii-based centre said.
"For those areas, when no major waves have occurred for at least two hours after the estimated arrival time or damaging waves have not occurred for at least two hours, then local authorities can assume the threat is passed."
Suhardjono, head of the earthquake division of Indonesia's meteorological agency, said tidal gauges off the Sumatran city of Padang had recorded an ocean surge of no more than half a metre.
"There was definitely no damage caused by waves anywhere along the west coast of Sumatra," he told AFP.
The undersea quake erupted around 1100 GMT some 100 kilometres southwest of the city of Bengkulu at a depth of roughly 30 kilometres, the United States Geological Survey said.
It adjusted an earlier report of magnitude 7.9 to 8.4.
Indonesia's meteorology agency said several aftershocks were recorded after the quake, which hit on the eve of the start of the Muslim Ramadan holy month, including one at magnitude 6.6 that prompted a second local tsunami alert.
The deputy chief official from North Bengkulu district told ElShinta radio that one person there had been killed by a falling tree while trying to evacuate, and that some buildings were "severely damaged."
The state-run Antara news agency reported that a 25-year-old woman had been found dead in her collapsed house in Bengkulu city.
Her sister told the agency that the woman had been bathing her four-year-old son when the quake hit. The boy's condition was unknown.
Rustam Pakaya from the ministry of health's crisis centre confirmed the toll was two and at least 11 people were injured. He could not confirm a report citing a Social Affairs ministry official saying seven were dead.
Dozens of people were injured in damaged buildings, said the district official, Salamun Haris. The Bengkulu airport terminal was cracked but the runway was in good condition, another official said.
There were several reports that the damage did not at first seem severe.
"I saw some parts of houses crumbled to the ground but not huge damage. People ran out of their homes," Bengkulu resident Ayu Claudia said in a brief conversation before the phone lines went down.
Budi Darmawan, a policeman in the Indonesian town of Mukomuko on the west coast of Sumatra, said buildings three storeys and higher had collapsed and that tsunami warning sirens had failed to activate.
"Buildings of three floors or more are either fissured or collapsed," he told ElShinta.
He said police raced through the streets on motorcycles, warning residents to move quickly to higher ground.
Malaysia, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, India and Mauritius all issued separate tsunami warnings telling residents to move away from the Indian Ocean coastline. Sri Lanka, Malaysia and India later lifted their warnings.
Hundreds of thousands of people in southern Bangladesh fled their homes in panic after the government issued a tsunami alert, while East African countries Kenya and Tanzania also urged residents to stay away from coastal areas.
Indonesia has endured repeated major quakes in recent years, including the 2004 quake that unleashed a tsunami across the Indian Ocean. It killed over 220,000 people in a dozen countries including some 168,000 in the Indonesian province of Aceh alone.
In May 2006, a quake rattled the country's main island of Java, killing more than 5,700 people and destroying some 300,000 homes. Two months later, another quake on Java killed more than 600.
In March yet another large quake hit Sumatra, killing more than 70 people, flattening buildings and displacing more than 1,700 people.
Indonesia, an archipelago of some 17,000 islands, sits on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, where continental plates meet - and where earthquakes are a frequent and often deadly occurrence. - AFP/ms/de
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