A strong earthquake jolted the eastern Indonesian province of Central Sulawesi early Monday, damaging a number of homes and triggering panic as people fled their homes, but there were no immediate reports of casualties, officials said. The trembler, measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale rocked Central Sulawesi capital of Palu and nearby regions at about 4:10 a.m. said Edison Gurning, a spokesman for the Indonesia's National Earthquake Centre in Jakarta. Gurning said in a statement that the quake's epicenter was about 16-kilometers southeast of Palu and 1,575 kilometers northeast of Jakarta. It occurred about 30 kilometers underground. There were no immediate reports of casualties, but officials said dozens of two-storey shop-houses and buildings were heavily damaged by the earthquake. Land at the nearby Palu's Mutiara airport was cracked. Monday's earthquake sent thousands of residents fleeing their homes in panic with visions of the December 26 earthquake and resulting tsunami still fresh. Several hours after the quake, thousands of residents, in particular of those people living at nearby coastal areas, refused to leave shelters on higher land for fear of a possible tsunami, despite local police authorities assuring that the quake would not trigger a tsunami.
