A strong earthquake struck parts of Indonesia’s main island Java and the resort island of Bali on Friday, causing panic, but there were no immediate reports of serious damage or casualties.
The US Geological Survey said the 7.0-magnitude quake was centered 96.5 kilometers (59.8 miles) north of Tuban, a coastal city in East Java province, at a depth of 594 kilometers. (369 miles).
Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said there was no danger of a tsunami but warned of possible aftershocks. The agency put a preliminary magnitude at 6.6. Variations in first measurements are common.
Videos circulating on social media showed local residents and tourists in the neighboring provinces of Central Java, Yogyakarta and Bali panicking as houses and buildings swayed for several seconds. Some places ordered evacuations, sending streams of people onto the streets.
The country of more than 270 million people is frequently hit by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis due to its location on the arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific basin known as the “Ring of Fire.”
In 2004, an extremely powerful earthquake in the Indian Ocean triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in the Indonesian province of Aceh.
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