A major 7.4-magnitude offshore quake struck the Northern Molucca Sea off Indonesia’s historic spice island of Ternate early on April 2, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said, triggering a tsunami warning for neighbouring South-east Asian nations.

Indonesian broadcaster Metro TV reported one person had died from falling rubble in the Manado area and video showed damaged buildings.

“The quake was felt strongly and around Manado... one person died and one person had a leg injury,” official George Leo Mercy Randang told AFP by telephone.

The victim was “buried under the rubble” of a collapsed building, he said.

The tsunami alert was lifted after about two hours, the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) said.

“Based on all available data... the tsunami threat from this earthquake has now passed,” the agency said in a statement, just over two hours after the quake struck.

The USGS had earlier reported aftershocks of magnitude as high as 5, and Indonesia’s meteorology agency BMKG reported tsunami waves in West Halmahera at 0.3m high and in Bitung at 0.2m high.

Regional governments in some cities, such as on Ternate and Tidore, the historic Spice Islands, were urged to prepare citizens for evacuation.

The quake hit at 6.48am local time at a depth of 35km in the Molucca Sea, the USGS said. Its epicentre was about 120km from Ternate, in North Maluku, which has a population of more than 200,000, the agency said.

The PTWC had said that hazardous tsunami waves were possible “within 1,000km of the epicentre” along the coasts of Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia.

It also warned that waves ranging from 0.3m to 1m in height above the tide level could hit some coastal areas of Indonesia and that there was a risk of waves less than 0.3m over tide levels for the coasts of Guam, Japan, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Taiwan.

The Philippines’ seismology agency Phivolcs said there was “no destructive tsunami threat” to the country based on latest data.

Malaysia’s meteorological department said in a Facebook post there was no tsunami threat to Malaysia at the moment and that it was monitoring developments.

Japan might see waves of up to 0.2m, but no damage was expected, the Japan Meteorological Agency said, as it warned a tsunami could occur in the Pacific.

An AFP journalist in Manado, North Sulawesi province, said the shaking woke him and others in the city, who rushed outdoors.

“I immediately woke up and left my house. People (were) immediately scrambling outside. There is a school and the pupils rushed outside,” he said.

The shaking persisted for “quite long”, but he did not witness “significant damage”, he added.

Indonesia straddles the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of high seismic activity where tectonic plates meet and earthquakes are frequent.

Source: Reuters

-- Agencies