A 6.9 magnitude undersea earthquake rocked Indonesia's Sumatra Island on Saturday, causing panic across a large swathe of the region. There were no reports of damage or injuries, and the quake did not trigger a tsunami. The temblor was centered 50 kilometers (31 miles) southwest of the city of Padang on west Sumatra, said Budi Waluyo, from the meteorological and geophysical agency. It struck at 12.05 local time (0505 GMT), he said. Frightened residents ran from their shaking houses in several cities on the island, Waluyo and media reports said. In December, a magnitude 9 earthquake and subsequent tsunami killed more than 128,000 people and left a half-million homeless on the northern part of Sumatra Island. Three months later, a second earthquake close to the December temblor left more than 900 dead on the Indonesian island of Nias and some smaller, surrounding islands. The region has been rocked by countless other, smaller quakes occurring along the same fault line.
