A powerful earthquake struck western Indonesia on Wednesday, prompting tsunami warnings from international agencies. There were no immediate reports of damage or injury. According to AP, The quake, which had a preliminary magnitude of 7.6, struck under the island of Simeulue off the western coast of Sumatra island, the U.S. Geological Survey said in a posting on its Web site. Quakes of that magnitude and above can cause considerable damage. It was not immediately possible to contact anyone on the island, which is home to around 75,000 people. Minutes after the quake hit, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a bulletin saying parts of the Sumatran coast closest to the epicenter were at risk of a possible tsunami. Japan's meteorological agency said India's Andaman and Nicobar island chain was also at risk. The quake was felt across a large swath of Sumatra island, witnesses said. Many people fled their homes, but there was no immediate reports of damage or injury. Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago with a population of 235 million people, is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on the «Ring of Fire,» an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin. A magnitude-9 quake off Sumatra's coast in 2004 triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia.
