Earthquake shakes Indonesia's Java, no damage

Jakarta, Jul 17: An undersea earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 struck off the Indonesian island of Java today, the US-based Pacific Tsunami Center said, but there were no reports of casualties or damage.

Indonesia's state meteorology and geophysics agency initially rated the quake at 5.5 magnitude, but then changed that to 6.8.

The Pacific Tsunami Center said that there was a possibility of a local tsunami, but no threat of a destructive widespread tsunami.

Officials in the nearest major town to the epicentre, Ciamis, said more than an hour after the quake hit at 0819 GMT that there had been no reports of damage or deaths, or of a tsunami on the coast.

In Jakarta, meteorology agency seismologist Fauzi told Reuters: ''We have received no damage report. We don't know how long it lasted but probably it was below one minute.'' Some occupants of high-rise Jakarta buildings felt the quake, which had an epicentre more than 30 kilometres under the Indian Ocean off Java's southern Pangandaran beach.

The beach is located around 270 kilometres southeast of Jakarta.

Earthquakes are frequent in Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country. A massive earthquake in December 2004 triggered a tsunami that left 170,000 people killed or missing in Aceh province.

In May, an earthquake near the central Java city of Yogyakarta killed more than 5,700 people.

Indonesia's 17,000 islands sprawl along a belt of intense volcanic and seismic activity, part of what is called the ''Pacific Ring of Fire''.

REUTERS

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