Thaindian News

JAKARTA (BNO NEWS) — A powerful earthquake struck the Indian Ocean south of the Indonesian island of Java on early Monday morning, seismologists said, prompting local residents to flee to higher ground. A tsunami warning was later canceled.

The 7.1-magnitude earthquake at 3.06 a.m. local time (2006 GMT Sunday) was centered about 293 kilometers (182 miles) southwest of Cilacap, a regency in the southwestern part of Central Java province. It struck about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) deep, making it a shallow earthquake, according to Indonesia’s Meteorological, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG).

BMKG immediately issued a tsunami warning for some coastal areas of Indonesia, prompting residents in those and surrounding regions to flee to higher grounds. The warning was canceled nearly 2 hours later and there were no reports of tsunami activity.

Meanwhile, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) measured the strength of the earthquake at 6.7 on the Richter scale with a depth of 24 kilometers (14.9 miles). It said there was a low likelihood of casualties and damage.

Indonesia is on the so-called ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’, an arc of fault lines circling the Pacific Basin that is prone to frequent and large earthquakes. Volcanic eruptions also occur frequently in the region.

On December 26, 2004, one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded struck off the west coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. The 9.1-magnitude earthquake unleashed a deadly tsunami, striking scores of countries. In all, at least 227,898 people were killed.

Most recently, on October 25, 2010, a powerful 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck just off the Mentawai Islands off the western coast of Sumatra. As a result, a wall of water killed at least 435 people on the islands and impacted more than 20 villages.