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Indonesia's Sumatra Checks for Damage from 6.3 Magnitude Earthquake

by Reuters

   Indonesia's disaster agency is assessing the impact of a strong
   earthquake that hit off the southern coast of Sumatra island late
   Tuesday, it said in a statement, noting there had been no reports of
   damage or casualties by near midnight.

   The 6.3 magnitude quake struck at 21:31 local time (1431 GMT), the
   country's meteorology and geophysics agency (BMKG) said, with its
   epicenter 80 kilometers south of the town of Manna in Bengkulu
   province, at a depth of 52 kilometers.

   Manna is about 600 kilometers northwest of the capital Jakarta.

   The tremor was felt for 2 to 6 seconds by residents along the southern
   coastline of Sumatra, prompting some to run out of their homes,
   disaster agency BNPB said in a statement.

   "It was quite strong," a Bengkulu agency official, Septi, said.

   Indonesia straddles the so-called "Pacific Ring of Fire," a seismically
   active zone, where different plates on the Earth's crust meet and
   create a large number of earthquakes and volcanoes.

   In February, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake killed more than 10 people when
   it struck inland near the western coast of Sumatra.