January 28, 2006	Saturday	Zilhaj 27, 1426

JAKARTA: A major earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale rocked eastern Indonesia on Saturday (late Friday night in Pakistan), the US Geological Survey said.

The quake occurred at 1.58am (9.58pm PST Friday) in the Banda Sea, 195kms south of Ambon city at a depth of 340 kilometres.

There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii, which monitors seismic events and their tidal wave-generating potential, put out a bulletin following the quake, but said no tsunami was expected.

“A destructive tsunami is not expected from the earthquake,” Stuart Weinstein, the center’s assistant director, said.

“The quake was very deep, its 340 kilometers or roughly 220 miles deep. It’s so far under the surface that it’s not going to cause enough displacement of the sea floor that it’ll generate a tsunami,” he added.

Indonesia’s Aceh province was the hardest hit by the 9.3-magnitude quake off the coast of Sumatra that triggered tsunamis on Dec 26, 2004. The waves killed more than 220,000 people around the Indian Ocean.

An official with the Jakarta meteorological office said it had recorded the quake at 7.3 on the Richter scale.

It was felt in Ambon and the towns of Tual and Saumlaki, also in the Maluku island chain, as well as in Sorong in Papua province, Kupang in East Nusa Tenggara province and the South Sulawesi provincial capital of Makassar, all of which encircled the epicentre of the quake, he said.—AFP