Moderate Quakes Hit Maluku and Aceh

Banda Aceh, TAG – Two moderate undersea earthquakes hit Maluku islands and Aceh provincial capital Banda Aceh on Wednesday afternoon, but there’re no tsunami warning or report of damage.

A 6.1-magnitude quake struck off southeast Maluku occurred on 5:45 p.m with an epicenter 98 kilometers northeast of the region, the Meteorological and Geophysics Agency said in its website. Meanwhile, the US Geological Survey recorded the quake’s magnitude at 5.6.



The quake hit at a relatively shallow depth of 14 kilometers. “We haven’t received any report of damage, Fauzi, an agency official said.

Separately, a 5.4-magnitude undersea quake also struck off some parts of Aceh at 19.02 p.m. with epicenter 149 kilometer southwest of the provincial capital Banda Aceh and a depth of 37 kilometers.

The quake didn’t cause panic residents as Banda Aceh’s citizens were doing the Maghrib prayers. Some people didn’t feel the tremor.

At least there're five quakes measuring up to 5.0-magnitude felt by people hit Indonesian’s northern tip Aceh province since January. The biggest one struck off on January 11 with 7.3-magnitude which sending residents onto the streets and in search of higher ground after the agency issued the tsunami warning, but no one injured.

Aceh was the worst-affected area by December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami -- triggered by a giant 9.3-magnitude earthquake -- that claimed 220,000 lives, three-quarters of them in the northern tip of Sumatra’s province.

A powerful earthquake hit Sumatra in September 2009, killing more than 1,000 people, and seismologists have warned of the likelihood of another large quake in the coming years. 

Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", where the meeting of continental plates causes high volcanic and seismic activity.[]