Updated at 6:57 a.m., Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Two strong earthquakes jolt sea floor near East Timor
Advertiser Staff and News Services
DILI, East Timor Two strong earthquake struck off the coast of East Timor about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday Hawai'i time, prompting authorities to briefly issue a tsunami alert but no large waves hit the tiny nation's coast.The 6.2- and 6.3-magnitude tremors struck 160 miles northeast of the capital, Dili, in Indonesia's Banda Sea at a depth of 6 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Residents in the capital did not feel any shaking and there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
Indonesia's Meteorological and Geophysics agency issued a tsunami alert, saying the quake had been powerful enough to generate giant waves. The warning was later retracted.
East Timor, a former Portuguese colony that became Asia's youngest country after breaking from Indonesia in 1999, sits along a series of fault lines and volcanoes known as the Pacific Ring of Fire.
In December 2004, a massive earthquake struck off Indonesia's Sumatra and triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, including 160,000 people in Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh.