honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser

Updated at 12:37 p.m., Wednesday, August 8, 2007

No tsunami threat from 7.5 earthquake in Indonesia

Associated Press

JAKARTA, Indonesia — A powerful earthquake under the Java Sea shook Indonesia's capital early Thursday, violently shaking tall buildings and sending panicked residents into the streets.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake, which struck at 12:04 a.m. (7:04 a.m. today Hawai'i time) had a preliminary magnitude of 7.5 and was centered about 65 miles east of Jakarta at a depth of 180 miles.

Residents said tall buildings and single story homes in Jakarta shook violently.

Because of the earthquake's depth, there was little risk of a tsunami, said Robert Cessaro, a geophysicist at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawai'i.

None of the instruments closest to the earthquake indicated that a tsunami was triggered, Cessaro said, although he added that there were no instruments "very close" to the quake's epicenter.

The depth of the earthquake "suggests there will be no tsunami," he said.

Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

A massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami on Dec. 26, 2004, killed more than 131,000 people in Indonesia's Aceh province and left half a million homeless.