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JAKARTA: At least nine people were killed in powerful quakes off Indonesia's Sumatra island and hundreds of homes damaged, but casualties appeared to be lower than first feared, officials said Thursday.
"We have now a total of six dead in Bengkulu, with the latest victim, a man, reported killed in Mukomuko district," an official at Bengkulu's provincial disaster coordination post told AFP.
About two dozen people were being treated in hospital for injuries, he said.
An official at the West Sumatra provincial post said three people had been killed in the area it covers, while more than 200 homes were damaged. Of those, 149 collapsed on islands in the Mentawai group off Sumatra, he told AFP.
Damage from the 8.4-magnitude quake that struck on Wednesday at dusk and has been followed by a series of major aftershocks appears to be much less than initially feared.
Quakes of magnitudes larger than 8.0 occur on average about once per year somewhere in the world, according to the US Geological Survey.
An AFP correspondent in the village of Kota Agung said scores of houses had been flattened there but residents managed to flee their homes when the quake began rumbling, saving themselves before buildings collapsed.
Nobody in the village appeared to be killed or even injured by the quake, which struck as Indonesians were preparing to enter Ramadan, the holy Islamic fasting month that began Thursday, residents said.
Health ministry spokeswoman Lilies Sulistyawati warned however that the toll could rise as communications with affected areas was difficult.
Sumatra's west coast was hit by a second 7.8-magnitude quake on Thursday morning, panicking already frightened survivors. - AFP/ac
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