EON

Jakarta (EON) - A powerful 8.2 earthquake jolted parts of Indonesia’s Java and Sumatra islands on Wednesday evening, killing at least three people and prompting a tsunami warning that was later withdrawn for Indonesia - but not for nearby nations.

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre, which measured the quake’s magnitude at 8.2 in the Richter scale, issued a tsunami watch to 27 Indian Ocean rim nations, including India and Sri Lanka, where it could take up to three hours to hit.

The governments of India and Sri Lanka also issued tsunami alerts after the quake, which the US Geological Survey also measured it at a magnitude of 8.2.

The quake struck off the southwest coast of Sumatra Island at about 6:10 pm (1110 GMT), shaking coastal regions there, the capital Jakarta on Java Island, and West Java’s Banten province, said Fauzi, an official at Jakarta’s Meteorology and Geophysics Agency.

The agency issued a tsunami warning for coastal areas on Sumatra and Java, which was called off around 8 p.m. because too much time had passed for a wave to hit, Fauzi, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Reports from Bengkulu province, on Sumatra’s southwest coat, said panicky residents fled out of damaged buildings and into the streets, many running for higher ground in fear of tsunami waves.

One person killed in Bengkulu after being hit by falling debris from a house, the state-run Antara news agency reported. Two people in the west Sumatran town of Padang were killed by flying glass from a damaged two-story building, according to the detik.com news portal.

The tremblor and subsequent panic was a flashback to December 26, 2004, when a massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami that struck nine Asian nations and killed 177,000 people alone in Indonesia’s Aceh province, which lies on the northern tip of Sumatra.

Budi Adiputro, chief of staff of the National Disaster Coordinating Agency, told dpa that initial reports from Bengkulu, where communications were disrupted, did not indicate major casualties but that authorities “were still monitoring.”

Budi Harsono, a police official in Bengkulu told the Jakarta-based Elshinta radio station that he saw a three-storey building collapse following the quake, which triggered panic among residents, in particular those living in nearby the beach areas. Many of them fled by motorcycle to higher ground in fear of a tsunami.

Budi Waluyo, another geophysics agency official in Jakarta, told dpa that he had received reports of damaged buildings, in particular in Bengkulu, following the latest quake, which hit on the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The quake took place about 159 kilometres south-west of the South Sumatran province of Bengkulu and was about 10 kilometres beneath the seabed.

In Jakarta, the quake triggered panic among employees and residents in high-rise buildings, with at least two people reported having fainted, and countless more fleeing into the streets.

Indonesia is located along the Pacific volcanic belt known as the “Ring of Fire,” where earthquakes and volcanoes are common.

Tremors were also felt in Malaysia’s east coast, prompting mass evacuations from major corporate and residential buildings in Kuala Lumpur.

The Malaysian Meteorological Department confirmed that tremors had hit several areas in the country’s east coast, but no casualties have been reported.

Thousands of apartment residents and hundreds of office workers staying back late to work after-hours were forced to evacuate their buildings.

“I suddenly saw the water in my indoor aquarium splash about wildly, and heard shouts and screams from neighbours,” said Aarolyn Yip, a resident at a 17-storey apartment in the capital city. “Once we reached the ground floor, we felt more tremors,” said Yip.

Last month, a powerful 7.5-magnitude quake struck off the northern coast of Java and was felt hundreds of miles away, but there were not damage or casualties because the tremblor struck too deep in the ocean.