A tectonic earthquake measuring 5.0 on the Richter Scale jolted Bengkulu on Thursday evening at about 20:21 local time, ANTARA reported. Fahmiza, coordinator of the Bengkulu station of the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) , said the quake's epicenter was located at 3.54 degrees southern latitude and 101.49 degrees eastern longitude or 62 km southwest of North Bengkulu district at a depth of 20 km below sea level. Earlier, a temblor measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale also hit Bengkulu province, BMG said. The epicenter of the quake which struck 45 minutes after midnight was located at 2.92 degrees southern latitude and 100.98 degrees eastern longitude at a depth of 54 kilometers, and 44 kilometers southwest of Muko-muko district. Last Thursday, Bengkulu was jolted by an earthquake of a similar magnitude whose epicenter lay at a the depth of 80 kilometers below sea level, or 95 km southwest of Bintuhan in Kaur district. A 5.6-magnitude earthquake hit the waters off the Bengkulu coast on April 27. A magnitude 7.9 quake rocked Bengkulu on Sept. 12 last year, killing dozens of people and destroying thousands of houses. Since then, earthquakes, most of them measuring less than 4 on the Richter scale, had shaken the province almost every day.
