42 injured as major quake hits Indonesia
Posted: 12 February 2009 1409 hrs

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JAKARTA: At least 42 people were injured and hundreds of homes and buildings damaged when a major earthquake struck off Indonesia's Sulawesi island near the Philippines early on Thursday, officials said.

The 7.2-magnitude undersea quake struck at 1:34 am local time (1734 GMT Wednesday), prompting Indonesia's geophysics agency to issue a tsunami alert, which was later revoked.

"A total of 42 people have been injured, with ten of them seriously," health ministry crisis centre head Rustam Pakaya told AFP by text message.

Nearly 700 homes as well as office buildings, schools and health clinics were damaged in the remote Talaud Islands in North Sulawesi province, local government spokesman Manurat said.

"About 309 buildings have been heavily damaged and 390 others suffered light to medium damage," he said.

Thousands of residents were camped outdoors on high ground out of fear of aftershocks and tsunamis.

"An estimated 5,000 residents have fled their homes," Manurat said.

Indonesia was the nation worst-hit by the earthquake-triggered tsunami in December 2004 that killed more than 200,000 people in 11 countries across Asia, including over 168,000 people in Indonesia's Aceh province and Nias island.

Thursday's quake also caused the partial collapse of the main district hospital, forcing it to move patients to local clinics, the ministry's Pakaya said.

The epicentre of the shallow quake was about 320 kilometres northeast of the Indonesian town of Manado and 280 kilometres southeast of General Santos in the Philippines, the US Geological Survey said.

There were no reports of any damage or casualties in the Philippines.

The USGS initially put the magnitude of the quake at 7.5, but later revised this down to 7.2. Indonesia measured the quake at 7.4 on the Richter scale.

Several aftershocks with magnitudes of up to 6.3 struck in the hours following the original quake, the USGS reported.

An aftershock with a magnitude of 6.4 struck on Thursday evening, 20 hours after the original quake with an epicentre in almost exactly the same place, the USGS said.

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre sent a bulletin saying there was "no destructive widespread tsunami threat" based on available data.

The Indonesian archipelago straddles several continental plates in an area known as the Pacific Ring of Fire, where seismic and volcanic activity is recorded almost daily.

The Philippines, made up of more than 7,000 islands, also experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity. - AFP/ir/de