Moderate quake strikes off Indonesia's Moluccas

Jakarta, Jan 20: A moderate earthquake of 5.9 magnitude hit deep in waters off Indonesia's Molucca islands today, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

An Indonesian official put the quake's strength at 6.2 on the Richter scale.

''(The quake) was in the Banda sea at 9.45 am (0815 hrs IST),'' Hendrik Leopatty, an analyst at the meteorology and geophysic agency in Jakarta, told Reuters. ''Its depth was 170 km below sea level.'' He said there was little danger of a tsunami.

The USGS website said the quake was 320 km southeast of Ambon, the major city in the Moluccas, 2,300 km east of Jakarta.

There were no reports of damage or casualties more than an hour after the quake, an official in the Moluccas told Reuters.

He added, however, that there were many remote islands in the area and communications could be difficult.

REUTERS

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