An earthquake measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale jolted North Maluku Province, on Sunday, at around 11.06 am Western Indonesian Time, ANTARA reported. The epicenter of the earthquake was located at 2.85 degrees northern latitude and 126.83 degrees eastern longitude, at a depth of 33 km, around 237 km northwest of Ternate, the capital of North Maluku Province, according to data from the national meteorology and geophysics office on Sunday. Earlier, also on Sunday at around 6.56 am local time, a mild tremor measuring 4.6 on the Richter scale jolted an area located around 97 km of southwest Tasikmalaya, West Java, at a depth of 39 km. Last Thursday (Aug. 9), Java Island, and parts of Sumatra Island, Bali as well as West Nusa Tenggara Province were rocked by a 7.3-magnitude earthquake which occurred at 00.04 am Western Indonesia Time. The epicenter of the earthquake was located at 5.9 degrees southern latitude and 107.7 degrees eastern longitude about 75 km northwest of Indramayu, West Java, at a depth of around 286 km in Java Sea. The earthquake, which lasted for around two to five minutes, panicked a number of people and damaged several buildings. Indonesia sits on the seismically active "Pacific Ring of Fire" and experiences frequent earthquakes as well as tsunamis triggered by underwater earthquakes. On December 26, 2004, Aceh province and Nias Island (North Sumatra province) were devastated by a massive earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale and a subsequent deadly tsunami which killed at least 170,000 people.
