An earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale was reported to have jolted West Sumatran waters at 1:37 on Friday afternoon, ANTARA reported. According to the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG), the epicenter of the earthquake was located at 4.13 degrees southern latitude and 100.85 degrees eastern longitude at a depth of 10 kilometers below sea level, or some 140 kilometers southeast of Pagai Selatan, Mentawai in West Sumatra, and 149 kilometers northwest of Lais in Bengkulu. On Thursday morning, an undersea 6.6 magnitude earthquake also rattled Sumbawa island causing damage to a number of buildings and leaving several people injured. "According to preliminary reports, a number of buildings were damaged in the earthquake. We are still waiting for a more detailed report on the extent of the damage. No casualty has been reported so far," H Sutrisno, head of the data and information section at the Denpasar meteorology and geophysics station, said. The epicenter of the quake which struck at 06.41 p.m. was in the sea about 51 km northeast of Sumbawa at a depth of 10 km. Earlier, at 05.07 a.m. an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale also hit the area with the epicenter located 50 km northeast of Sumbawa. None of the two temblors caused a tsunami. The 6.6 magnitude earthquake was felt by people living in Dompu, Sumbawa Besar and Sumbawa Barat at II-III and Bali island at II on the Modified Merchally scale, Sutrisno said. Indonesia is prone to seismic upheavals due to its location in the Pacific "Ring of Fire," an area of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin. On December 26, 2004, a powerful earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale and an ensuing tsunami swept through parts of Aceh province, killing more than 200,000 people and causing the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of others.
